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^  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  *j^ 


Presented    by    \    X^^^^  \  c\  (S^r-\^  \~b\V-V  O  N^ 


Division 
Section  ■■ 


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FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 


FROM  TALK  TO  TEXT 


OR 


A  LIKELY  STORY  I-LIKELY  ENOUGH 


BY' 

ADDISON    BALLARD,    D.D. 

PROFESSOR    OF    LOGIC,    NEW    YORK    UNIVERSITY 
AUTHOR  OF   "arrows;   OR,   TEACHING   A    FINE   ART' 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

91   AND  93  FIFTH   AVENUE,   NEW  YORK 

LONDON    AND    BOMBAY 

1904 


Copyright,  1904,  by 
ADDISON    BALLARD 

All  rights  reserved 


The   Kingdom  of  Heaven   Is   Like''- 


PREFACE 

In  general,  the  author  aims  here  to  point 
through  Nature  an  easy  way  to  Faith. 

In  particular,  he  believes  it  will  be  found: 

That  II  sums  in  briefest  form  the  true  nature 
and  scope  of  Analogical  Reasoning; 

That  XII  discloses  a  plausible  but  serious  error 
in  the  "  faith-healing  "  theory; 

That  XV,  XVI  simplify  the  confused  questions 
of  "  Comparative  Religions  "  and  the  true  ground 
for  Christian  Unity; 

That  XX,  XXI  give  to  Miracle  its  true  place; 

That  XXII,  XXIII  discriminate  by  original 
generalizations  between  Natural  and  Moral  Gov- 
ernment; and 

That  XXIV,  XXV  make  somewhat  easier  of  ac- 
ceptance the  (by  some)  so-called  *'  hard "  doc- 
trines of  grace. 

Part  of  what  is  here  printed  has  appeared 
already  in  periodical  form. 

University  Heights,  New  York. 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

I.  From  Talk  to  Text 3 

II.  "A  Likely  Story!"     "Likely  Enough"     .        .  9 

III.  Without  Observation 15 

IV.  Keeping  and  Kept           .         .                 ...  23 
V.  The  Parallax  of  Pain 31 

VI.   The  Dial  and  the  Wheels  .         .         .         .37 

VII.    Unity  in  Diversity 45 

VIII.    Nature's  Guarantee  for  the  Prosperity  of  the 

"Word" 51 

IX.    Caught  Away 57 

X.    The  Likelihood  of  a  Resurrection     .         .         -63 
XI.    The  Psychical  and  the  Pneumatical  Body        .     69 
XII.    "In    My   Name;"   or,    Offers    of  Natural  and 

Spiritual   Help 75 

XIII.  If;  or,  Spiritual  Like  Natural  Success  Strictly 

Conditioned 81 

XIV.  Passing  Away  by  Fulfilment        .         .        .         -87 
XV.   The  One  Thou  Shalt 95 

XVI.    The   One  Religion;   or,  Back  to  Sinai  by  Way 

of  Calvary 99 


CONTENTS 


XVII.    True  Friends  of  Christ 
XVIII.    From  Likelihood  to  Certainty  . 
XIX.    Security  against  Natural  and  Moral  Ev 
XX.   Better  than  Miracle    .... 
XXI.   Absence,  Not  Desertion 
XXII.    Government  of  Things  by  Purpose     . 

XXIII.  Government  of  Persons  by  Proposal 

XXIV.  Bondage  by  Law 

XXV.    Release  by  Faith 


PAGE 
153 


I 

FROM   TALK   TO   TEXT 


FROM   TALK   TO   TEXT 


Preacher  and  philosopher  discourse  on  par- 
allel lines  but  in  opposite  directions — the  preacher 
downward,  from  text  to  talk;  the  philosopher  up- 
ward, from  talk  to  text. 

In  the  world-making  realm  the  preacher  begins 
with  God  and  ends  with  the  heavens  and  the  earth ; 
the  philosopher  begins  with  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  and  ends  with  God. 

In  the  economic  sphere  the  inspired  preacher  of 
proverbs  begins  with  the  "fear  of  the  Lord"; 
his  talk  being  thus,  at  the  very  outset,  invested 
with  the  twofold  sanction  of  authority  and  ac- 
countability. Industry  now  becomes  more  than 
prudence  to  be  preferred;  it  is  righteousness  to 
be  rewarded.  Sloth,  besides  being  folly  to  be 
shunned,  becomes  wickedness  to  be  punished. 
Hence,  by  a  beautiful  consistency,  this  wise  man's 
two  moral  discourses  end  as  they  begin — with 
God;   his  "Book  of   Proverbs"  beginning  with 

3 


4  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

God  as  Lord;  his  "Book  of  Eccleslastes  "  end- 
ing with  God  as  Judge. 

With  the  morahst  the  order  is  reversed.  Many 
of  the  proverbs  in  "  Poor  Richard's  Almanac  " 
are  as  good  in  their  way  as  are  the  hke  Proverbs 
of  Solomon.  But  with  Franklin,  the  philosopher, 
the  fear  of  consequences,  not  the  "  fear  of  the 
Lord,"  is  the  "  beginning  of  wisdom."  He  be- 
gins with  men.  A  shrewd  observer  of  their  ways, 
he  applies  himself  to  the  task  of  discovering  why 
it  is  that  one  man,  for  example,  attains  to  com- 
petence, comfort  and  esteem,  while  another  man 
has  for  his  portion  in  life  only  poverty,  pity  and 
shame.  These  different  results  and  their  causes 
he  finds  to  be  so  uniform  that  he  sees  the  way  to 
sum  up  his  observations  in  a  series  of  practical 
maxims  and  rules  which  all  will  find  it  to  their 
advantage  to  follow. 

Franklin  does  not  stop  here,  however.  He  can- 
not but  surmise  that  consequences  linked  so  uni- 
formly to  actions  point  to  some  predisposing  pur- 
pose. From  consequences,  therefore,  as  from  a 
broad  landing-place  on  the  great  stairway  of  dis- 
covery,   he   ascends    from   purpose    to    Purposer, 


FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT  5 

from  precept  to  Preceptor,  from  law  to  Law- 
giver, from  principle  to  Prince.  Beginning  his 
"  Poor  Richard "  as  a  philosopher,  he  ends  it 
nevertheless  as  a  preacher,  goes  upward  from  talk 
to  text  and  so  ends  where  Solomon  begins;  "  This 
doctrine,  my  friends,"  says  "  Poor  Richard,"  *'  is 
reason  and  wisdom;  but,  after  all,  do  not  depend 
too  much  upon  your  own  industry,  frugality  and 
prudence,  though  excellent  things,  for  they  may  all 
be  blasted  without  the  blessing  of  Heaven,  and 
therefore  ask  that  blessing  humbly." 

This  carrying  downward  of  an  authorized  pre- 
cept and  applying  it  to  conduct,  and  this  parallel 
but  opposite  going  upward  from  experience  to  a 
justified  command,  applies  equally  to  men  in  com- 
munities; to  city,  state,  and  national  government 
and  to  international  behavior.  What  does  it  all 
amount  to — this  ceaseless  arraigning  of  official 
corruption ;  these  frantic  and  mostly  futile  at- 
tempts to  harmonize  the  conflicting  claims  of 
capital  and  labor;  this  despairing  lament  over  the 
*'  impassably  separated  accumulations  of  wealth 
and  poverty  " ;  this  no-end  of  peace  and  other 
like  ameliorating  congresses,  convocations,  and 
conventions;   this   theorizing  babel   of  humanita- 


6  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

rian  discussion;  these  fiercely  fought  moral-issue 
campaigns  and  elections — this  "  perpetual  "  com- 
"  motion  "  problem  solved  in  the  Sisyphean  at- 
tempt to  solve  the  others — what  In  the  last  analy- 
sis can  we  make  of  all  this  but  a  slow,  zigzagging, 
century-paced  talking  of  ourselves  upward  to  the 
simple  text  so  long  ago  given  (and  which,  if 
heeded,  would  have  left  a  misguided  experience 
none  of  these  hard  problems  to  solve) — to  the 
simple  text, 

"  AND  AS  YE  V^^OULD  THAT  MEN  SHOULD  DO  TO 
YOU.  DO  YE  ALSO  TO  THEM  LIKEWISE." 


II 

"  A  LIKELY  STORY  !  "  "  LIKELY  ENOUGH  " 


"A    LIKELY    STORY!"    "LIKELY    ENOUGH" 


In  these  five  words  may  be  epitomized  the 
need,  the  occasion,  the  scope  and  the  success  of 
Bishop  Butler's  great  work,  "  The  Analogy  of 
Rehgion  to  the  Constitution  and  Course  of  Nat- 
ure." 

"What!"  exclaims  the  angered,  eighteenth- 
century  deist,  "  this  life  a  probation  for  another? 
That  other  and  endless  life  to  be  one  of  rewards 
and  punishments  for  our  actions  here?  God  pun- 
ishing an  innocent  man  that  the  guilty  may  es- 
cape? His  working  among  men  by  Mediator  and 
miracle?  Likely  stories,  these  I  Tell  them,  if  you 
will,  to  dupes  and  imbeciles,  but  not  to  me.  Such 
superstitious  dogmas  my  first-hand  studies  of  nat- 
ure and  providence  force  me  both  to  deny  and  to 
resent.  In  His  works  and  ways  I  do  see  much 
of  God,  but  nothing  of  religion.  You  might  as 
well  hope  to  put  off  on  a  connoisseur  in  art  a  comic 
cartoon  for  a  '  Raphael '  as  to  put  off  on  me  the 

9 


lO  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

Bible  as  the  work  of  God.  It  is  not  at  all  In  His 
style." 

"  But  have  you  made  an  exhaustive  study  of 
our  many  elaborate  treatises  on  Natural  and  Re- 
vealed Religion?  " 

"  As  well  ask  whether  or  not  I  have  carefully 
considered  the  so-called  proofs  of  squaring  the  cir- 
cle. To  me  the  one  is  morally,  as  the  other  Is 
mathematically,  both  impossible  and  absurd." 

"  I  frankly  accept  the  issue,"  replies  Butler. 
"Supposing  there  were  no  Bible  in  existence;  let 
us  Inquire  together  what  nature  and  providence 
foreshadow  as  '  likely  enough  '  to  be  true  as  to 
those  great  matters  in  question  about  which  It  so 
deeply  concerns  us  all  to  be  rightly  Informed. 
When  we  shall  have  finished  this  joint  Inquiry,  I 
believe  that  I  shall  then  have  from  you  the  admis- 
sion, not,  it  may  be,  that  Christianity  is  true,  but 
that  It  Is  '  likely  enough  '  true  to  warrant  our  can- 
did and  most  earnest  consideration ;  not  that  it  will 
have  been  proven,  perhaps,  but  that  it  will  have 
been  shown  to  be  at  least  provable,  or  probable." 

This  study  of  God  In  nature  and  providence 
having  thus  turned  the  ear-shut  sceptic  Into  an 


"A    LIKELY   STORY!"      "LIKELY   ENOUGH"      u 

open-ear  listener;  the  denier  into  a  debater;  Chris- 
tian apologetics  are  relied  on  to  carry  inquiry  for- 
ward to  complete  and  happy  conviction.  The 
text-wise  tallc  of  analogy  leads  to,  illustrates  and 
confirms  not  only  the  simpler  truths,  but  the  mys- 
terious and  deeper  tenets,  also,  of  the  Christian 
faith. 

"  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  like,"  changes 
the  over-hasty  exclamation  of  scorn  to  the  more 
thoughtful,  qualified  assent,  "  Likely  Enough." 

If  "  On  to  Revelation  "  is  the  foreshadowing 
command  of  Nature;  "Back  to  Nature"  is  the 
confirming  word  of  Revelation. 


Ill 

WITHOUT   OBSERVATION 


WITHOUT    OBSERVATION 


Nature  is  unobtrusive.  However  beautiful 
or  bountiful  her  working,  she  sounds  no  trumpet 
before  her  that  she  may  be  seen  of  men.  Unless 
observant  and  thoughtful,  we  fail  to  see  what  she 
is  doing  till  it  is  done.  Only  intent  watchers 
mark  in  the  buds  forming  on  leafless  twigs  her 
silent  promise  of  the  coming  spring.  The  sun 
from  his  southern  goal  posts  no  flaming  advertise- 
ment of  his  intended  journey  to  the  North.  Nor 
does  he  then,  like  an  ambitious  athlete,  take  a 
swift  run,  that  he  may  leap  the  equator  at  a  sin- 
gle bound.  On  the  contrary,  with  such  even,  un- 
marked and  majestic  step  does  he  ascend  the  glow- 
ing steep  of  the  Zodiac  that,  ere  we  are  aware,  he 
has  touched  the  burning  summit  and  begun  his 
equally  slow  descent.  Along  the  eastern  horizon 
the  glowing,  golden  ball  of  the  mighty  pendulum 
swings  back  and  forth  unnoticed  in  its  sublimely 
measured  beat  between  Capricorn  and  Cancer. 

15 


l6  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

Our  long  midwinter  shadows  do  not  shorten 
suddenly  as  did  the  shadow  on  the  dial  of  Ahaz. 
They  shorten  so  slowly  that  we  do  not,  perhaps, 
notice  their  diminished  length  till,  in  our  mid- 
summer shadows,  we  see  our  heads  almost  touch- 
ing our  feet  in  the  middle  of  the  path,  and  seem 
to  ourselves  to  have  shrunk  to  the  stature  of  chil- 
dren. 

The  voices  of  spring  do  not  break  all  at  once 
upon  us.  One  note  of  a  single  blue-bird  is  all  you 
will  hear  for  many  days.  But  another  comes  and 
then  another.  Secretly  and  unsuspectedly  the  bird- 
choir  is  re-enforced  till  at  length,  as  if  by  miracle, 
forest  and  grove  and  thicket  are  alive  with  melody. 
Before  we  had  thought,  the  birds  are  mated  and 
have  built  their  nests;  and  when  we  first  see  a  robin 
with  a  worm  in  its  bill  flying  up  into  the  thick 
foliage  of  the  maple,  we  pause  with  incredulity, 
and  wonder  at  the  swift  and  unheeded  lapse  of  the 
passing  days. 

And  as  the  coming,  so  the  going  of  summer  is 
"  without  observation."  Decay,  like  growth,  is 
unheralded  and  therefore  for  a  time  unperceived. 
Here  and  there  a  leaf  on  here  and  there  a  tree 
begins  to  turn;  then  a  spray  and  then  a  bough;  a 


WITHOUT  OBSERVATION  if 

live  coal  and  then  a  burning  branch  on  their  green 
hearths,  till  valley  and  mountainside  are  all  ablaze. 
The  leaves  fall — not  all  at  once,  but  in  slow  suc- 
cession. Some  one  of  the  thousands  on  the  tree  is 
the  first  to  drop.  Weaker  than  its  fellows,  or  hav- 
ing sooner  finished  its  appointed  work,  it  lets  go 
its  hold  and  sinks  to  its  lowly  resting-place. 

The  seasons  have  their  respective  colors,  but 
the  changes  from  one  color  to  another  are  not 
noticeable,  except  after  somewhat  long  intervals. 
Grass  and  trees  are  not  painted  as  men  paint 
houses,  with  coats  of  distinct  and  darker  hue.  The 
paler  green  of  April  brightens  insensibly  into  the 
deeper  green  of  June;  and  this  in  its  turn  is 
changed — not  instantaneously  as  the  chemist  dis- 
charges vegetable  colors  in  his  laboratory — ^but 
fades  away  into  crimson  and  brown  and  russet. 

So  in  the  silence  of  its  changes  is  human  life. 
As  spring  brightens  insensibly  into  summer,  so 
childhood  brightens  into  youth,  and  youth  into 
manhood.  As  no  one  can  tell,  except  by  the 
almanac,  the  dividing  line  between  spring  and 
summer,  so  no  one  can  .tell  just  the  transition  point 
between  infancy  and  childhood,  or  between  child- 
hood and  youth.    There  is  no  particular  hour,  day, 


l8  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

week  or  month  when  the  mother  ceases  to  speak  of 
her  babe  and  begins  to  call  it  her  little  boy  or  girl ; 
no  particular  month,  or  even  year,  when  the  boy  or 
girl  becomes  the  young  man  or  the  young  woman. 

And  as  both  body  and  mind  develop  gradually, 
so  do  they  gradually  decline.  Time  ploughs  the 
face,  not  as  men  plough  a  field,  thrusting  the  share 
at  once  to  the  lowest  point  beneath  the  sward. 
This  tireless  ploughman  ploughs  shallow,  but  he 
ploughs  often  and  he  ploughs  long.  The  lines  of 
thought  and  care  with  which  at  first  he  just  skims 
the  unsullied  brow,  are  deepened  little  by  little 
into  the  furrows  and  ridges  of  old  age.  It  is  only 
the  quick  eye  and  ready  hand  of  disquieted  affec- 
tion that  descries  and  pulls  the  first  gray  hairs. 
No  man  knows  just  when  to  begin  to  call  himself 
old. 

But  though  unable  to  note  the  steps  or  to  ex- 
plain the  manner  of  physical  decay,  none  can  deny 
its  reality  or  be  blind  to  its  results.  There  are 
those  of  whom  all  at  length  say,  "  He  is  failing;  " 
or,  "  He  is  an  old  man."  Slowly  and  reluctantly 
as  children  come  to  see  and  to  say  this  of  their 
parents,  yet  the  time  does  come  when  even  the 
most  affectionate  of  children  are  forced  to  say,  as 


WITHOUT  OBSERVATION 


19 


said  Jacob's  sons  to  Joseph,  "  We  have  a  father, 
an  old  man." 

It  is  but  natural,  then,  that  the  ongoings  of  the 
*'  Kingdom  of  Heaven  "  should  also  be  "  without 
observation  " ;  that  its  fore-sayings  should  be  so 
veiled  in  diction  as  to  require  accomplishment  for 
their  true  interpretation ;  that  its  growth  should  be 
so  silent  from  seed  to  sickle,  from  blade  to  ear, 
that  even  the  appointed  reapers  must  be  told  when 
the  fields  are  "  white  for  the  harvest  ";  that  only 
the  few  who  have  been  on  the  watch  for  redemp- 
tion should  be  apprized  of  its  approach;  and,  on 
the  other  and  losing  side,  that  it  should  be  only 
after  the  quiet  withdrawal  of  its  offered  good,  that 
the  blind  and  unblessed  should  be  made  sure  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God  had  come  nigh  unto  them. 


IV 
KEEPING   AND    KEPT 


KEEPING   AND   KEPT 


Life  in  nature,  of  whatever  kind,  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest,  is  both  kept  and  self-keep- 
ing. 

Plant-life  is  kept  in  that  it  is  supplied  with  the 
organs  and  the  means  of  nutrition  and  defence. 
It  is  self-keeping  in  that  the  plant  makes  use  of 
these  organs  to  pick  out,  work  up  and  take  in  the 
provided  elements  of  its  growth.  The  raw  ma- 
terial being  given,  it  spins  and  weaves  its  own 
protecting  robe.  The  wheat-stalk  sheathes  itself 
with  silex  and  at  needed  intervals  adds  a  strength- 
ening joint.  The  leaf  spreads  varnish  on  its  ex- 
posed side.  The  sapling  shapes  for  itself  a  shield 
of  bark.  Against  gravity  ever  engaged  to  pull  it 
down  and  wind  to  blow  it  over,  the  rising  trunk 
offsets  the  increasing  leverage  of  its  spreading 
boughs  by  the  firmer  anchorage  of  its  extending 
roots.  With  almost  maternal  tenderness  the  infant 
germs  are  closely  wrapped  against  the  cold.     If 

23 


M 


PROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 


Stung,  the  tree  prepares  and  pours  out  a  secretion 
to  neutralize  or  expel  the  poison. 

Animal  life  is  both  kept  and  self-keeping. 
Food  is  provided  and  the  means  of  shelter;  but  the 
animal  perishes  unless  it  prepare  the  shelter  and 
seek  the  food.  A  place  is  given  the  fox  where  to 
dig  his  hole,  but  the  fox  must  dig  it.  To  birds 
material  is  given  for  building  their  nests,  but  the 
birds  must  build  them.  To  man  is  given  soil  and 
seed  and  sun  and  season;  skill  to  invent  and 
strength  to  toil;  but  he  is  kept  in  life  only  as  he 
puts  forth  this  strength  and  skill  to  fell  forests, 
till  farms,  work  mines,  erect  houses,  build  and 
operate  factories  and  mills,  cultivate  the  arts,  seek 
out  and  apply  remedies  for  disease. 

Most  happily  are  these  two  complementary 
ideas  conjoined  in  the  inspired  words:  "That 
Thou  givest  them  they  gather.  Thou  openest  Thy 
hand,  they  are  filled  with  good." 

The  Creator  gives;  the  creature  gathers.  Not 
to  His  opened  hand  do  His  creatures  come  as  beg- 
gars come  to  receive  from  the  hand  of  charity  their 
idle  dole.  Through  all  waters  is  sifted  abundant 
food,  but  the  fishes  must  seek  it  and  catch  it ;  each 
with  the   implement  which  God  has  provided — 


KEEPING  AND   KEPT 


25 


leviathan  with  his  net,  the  sword-fish  with  his 
blade.  "  The  lions  seek  their  meat  from  God," 
but  it  is  by  "  roaring  after  their  prey."  "  He  fills 
the  appetite  of  the  young  lions,"  but  only  as  they 
"  couch  in  their  dens,  and  abide  in  the  covert  and 
lie  in  wait."  While  "  He  provides  for  the  raven 
its  food,"  the  raven  is  at  the  same  time  busy  with 
eyes,  wings,  talons  and  beak.  When  "its  young 
ones  cry  unto  God  "  for  the  "  meat  which  they 
lack,"  it  "  wanders  "  far  and  wide  in  wise  and 
patient  search. 

Intellectual  life  is  at  once  kept  and  self-keep- 
ing. The  knowledge  requisite  for  mental  growth 
is  scattered  in  profusion  over  the  earth  and 
through  the  heavens.  But  although  there  are  in 
It  all  the  conditions  for  classification  and  unifica- 
tion, in  no  instance  is  it  classified  and  unified  for 
us.  The  classifying  and  unifying  we  must  do  for 
ourselves.  God  gives  us  the  materials  for  all  the 
sciences,  but  not  a  single  science.  We  are  left  to 
do  our  own  observing,  experimenting  and  sys- 
tematizing; to  devise  all  the  appliances  of  educa- 
tion; to  make  our  own  books,  gather  our  own 
libraries,  invent  our  own  apparatus,  make  our  own 
scientific  collections,   build  our  own  halls  of   In- 


26  FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 

struction.  God  educates  us,  but  only  as  we  educate 
ourselves.  It  is  only  by  the  persevering  pursuit  of 
knowledge  that  we  keep  ourselves  in  the  love  and 
enjoyment  of  knowledge.  Some  particular  branch 
of  learning  which  we  may  at  one  time  have  en- 
joyed we  cease  to  enjoy  if  we  neglect  its  pursuit. 

Spiritual  life,  as  analogy  of  the  lower  kinds  of 
life  might  lead  us  to  expect,  is  both  kept  and  self- 
keeping.  As  there  are  means  of  husbandry,  com- 
merce, finance,  learning;  and  as  the  farmer,  mer- 
chant, financier,  student,  prosper  only  as  the 
appointed  means  are  faithfully  employed,  so  there 
are  "  means  of  grace  "  and  we  prosper  spiritually 
only  as  they  are  diligently  improved.  An  un- 
opened or  unstudied  Bible  no  more  gives  us  a 
knowledge  of  God's  love  in  redemption  than  an 
unopened  or  unstudied  text-book  on  algebra  gives 
us  a  knowledge  of  algebra;  no  more  than  an  un- 
gathered,  untasted,  uneaten  harvest  ministers  to 
the  life  and  growth  of  the  body.  As  the  sluggard 
pines  in  sight  of  waving  grain-fields;  as  the  idle 
student  is  a  starveling  in  the  midst  of  text-books, 
libraries  and  teachers;  so,  although  given  the 
Word  of  God,  time  and  place  for  closet-prayer. 


KEEPING  AND   KEPT 


27 


houses  for  public  prayer  and  praise;  only  as  we 
avail  ourselves  earnestly  and  habitually  of  these 
graciously  offered  helps  will  the  flame  of  love  to 
God  and  man  be  kept  brightly  burning  in  our 
hearts. 

With  St.  Peter's  "  Kept  hy  the  power  of  God,'" 
therefore,  must  be  coupled  always  St.  Jude's 
"  Keep  yourselves  in  the  love  of  God^ 


V 
THE   PARALLAX   OF    PAIN 


THE    PARALLAX    OF   PAIN 


In  NATURE,  parallax  Is  a  change  in  the  place  of 
a  variable  object  when  referred  to  one  whose  po- 
sition is  invariable;  the  transferring  of  our  own 
position  or  motion  to  that  of  another  body.  It  is 
due  to  this  that,  sitting,  it  is  impossible  to  tell  the 
exact  time  by  the  hands  of  a  clock  considerably 
above  us.  The  hands  are  not  where  they  seem 
to  be.  We  must  rise  and  bring  our  eyes  to  the 
level  of  the  dial-plate.  Like  instances  are  the  glid- 
ing past  us  of  trees  and  fences  as  we  ride  in  the 
cars  and  the  confusion  into  which  objects  in  the 
landscape  then  appear  to  be  thrown.  Of  like 
illusion  is  the  sun's  daily  motion  through  the 
heavens  from  east  to  west,  and  his  yearly  advance 
toward  and  recession  from  his  northern  and  south- 
ern limits,  the  "  tropics  " — the  sun's  "  turning- 
points,"  as  the  word  means.  These  are  not  real 
motions  of  the  sun,  but  are  our  own  planetary  or 
wandering  movements  transferred  to  him.    We 

31 


,2  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

turn  over  from  west  to  east;  not  he,  from  east  to 
west.  He,  the  father  of  our  system  and  of  its 
light,  retains  ever  his  steadfast  place  in  the  centre 
of  his  circling  family,  and  with  him  is  no  variable- 
ness, neither  shadow  of  turning. 

As,  then,  we  do  not  stripe  the  sun's  fair  disk 
with  zones ;  as  we  do  not  charge  him  with  all  our 
variations  of  climate,  with  "  pinching  cold  and 
scorching  heat " ;  with  "  vapor  and  mist  and  ex- 
halation hot,  corrupt  and  pestilent  ";  with  "  snow 
and  hail  and  stormy  gust  and  flaw  " ;  It  were  un- 
natural in  the  spiritual  realm  to  charge  upon  God 
the  vicissitudes,  the  perplexing  Inequalities  of  our 
daily  life.  The  Father  of  lights.  He  is  ever  the 
same  God  of  love,  consolation  and  blessing  to  all 
who  turn  lovingly  and  obediently  toward  Him. 
And  just  as  He  has  given  us  the  means  and  oppor- 
tunity to  counteract  and  even  to  profit  by  the  vicis- 
situdes of  the  seasons — not  with  the  instinct  of 
birds  who  by  following  the  sun  keep  on  the  same 
relative  parallel,  but  by  doing  what  is  equivalent 
— by  industriously  providing  In  summer  against 
the  rigors  of  winter;  and  as  by  such  a  wise  fore- 
cast and  diligence  we  may  keep  the  body  in  con- 
stant  equilibrium    of   comfort;   and    as    He    has 


THE   PARALLAX   OF   PAIN  33 

promised  that  the  means  for  this  deliverance  shall 
never  be  withdrawn,  but  that  "  while  the  earth  re- 
maineth  seed-time  and  harvest  "  shall  not  cease — 
so  in  the  Gospel  of  His  Son  has  He  also  provided 
that  we  may,  if  we  will,  overcome  and  even  profit 
by  all  the  painful  alternations  of  our  fallen  spirit- 
ual state ;  that  by  diligent  Christian  husbandry,  by 
meditation,  watchfulness  and  prayer  we  may  main- 
tain a  cheerful  equanimity  through  all  the  trying 
reverses  of  our  mortal  lives;  while  at  the  same 
time,  through  this  patience  and  discipline  of  faith 
we  lay  up  for  ourselves  a  harvest  of  unending  joy. 
Thus  is  it  that  for  the  loving,  trusting  child  of 
God  the  hard  problem  of  discipline  is  solved  by 

the  PARALLAX  OF  PAIN. 


VI 

THE    DIAL   AND   THE    WHEELS 


THE   DIAL   AND   THE   WHEELS 


Infidelity  makes  the  same  objection  to  Chris- 
tianity as  a  power  for  the  regeneration  of  the 
world  that  was  once  made  to  out-of-door  clocks. 
The  objection  to  tower  clocks  used  to  be  their 
liability  to  be  stopped  in  winter  by  snow  and  sleet 
driving  in,  sheeting  the  graduated  face  and  ob- 
structing the  hands.  When  the  hands  were 
stopped,  the  clock  was  stopped.  But,  at  length, 
a  clock  was  invented  so  ingeniously  contrived 
that  the  wheels  continued  to  revolve  regularly, 
even  when  the  pointers  were  ice-  or  snow-bound; 
and  not  only  that,  but  so  that  when  the  snow  and 
the  ice  were  melted  the  released  hands  at  once 
moved  forward  through  the  whole  arc,  over 
which,  but  for  the  storm,  they  would  have  moved 
steadily  and  imperceptibly. 

So  of  the  times  when  the  work  of  Christ  ap- 
pears to  come  to  a  standstill.  The  hands  on  the 
dial  of  progress  are  blocked  by  the  storms  of 

37 


38  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

bigotry,  prejudice  and  persecution.  And  men  say, 
This  is  a  good  clock  enough ;  it  is  well  made ;  the 
machinery  is  unusually  fine;  the  motive  power  ex- 
cellent, and  it  keeps  remarkably  accurate  time 
when  it  goes;  and  it  goes  very  well  in  pleasant 
weather.  But  it  is  altogether  too  delicate  and  frail 
for  such  rough  days  and  nights  as  we  are  liable  to 
have  in  this  cold  and  stormy  latitude  of  ours.  It 
cannot  stand  the  blasts  of  ridicule,  error,  persecu- 
tion, and  false  philosophy,  of  which  this  earthly 
atmosphere  of  ours  Is  so  full. 

This  is  but  a  surface  view.  The  internal  ma- 
chinery of  this  divine  clock  never  runs  down, 
never  gets  out  of  order,  is  never  obstructed,  never 
stops.  Through  all  outward  pauses  and  discour- 
agements, the  plan  of  the  dear  Christ  moves 
calmly,  irresistibly  forward.  The  seeming  in- 
action is  but  a  secret  preparation  for  some  great 
onward  and  outward  movement  of  his  cause.  The 
results  of  this  hidden  working  are  husbanded  with- 
out loss,  and  they  will  all  appear  in  what  men, 
when  they  see  them,  will  call  a  sudden,  unlooked- 
for,  almost  miraculous  start  in  the  history  of  the 
church  and  of  the  world. 

So  was  it  with  our  late  Civil  War  which  swept 


THE   DIAL   AND    THE    WHEELS  39 

away  an  age-entrenched  hinderance,  and  advanced 
Christian  civihzation  hundreds  of  years  in  the 
short  space  of  four  years.  The  obstructing  masses 
are  melted,  and  the  great  arms  move  at  once  to 
their  true  place  on  the  dial-plate  of  the  world's 
history. 

So,  too,  of  God's  work  in  the  heart  of  each 
faithful  Christian.  Had  we  stood  on  the  outside 
of  Bedford  jail  we  should  have  deplored  that 
such  a  faithful  servant  of  Christ  is  brought  to 
such  a  standstill  of  usefulness  and  spiritual  ad- 
vancement. We  would  have  said,  *'  This  poor 
prisoner  can  make  no  further  attainments  in  the 
Christian  life;  he  can  no  longer  labor  for  the  cause 
he  so  much  loves,  cut  off  as  he  now  is  from  the 
usual  means  and  opportunities  of  growth  and 
service."  But  the  wheels  inside  that  prison-case 
all  the  time  were  far  from  being  idle,  and  when 
Bunyan  was  at  length  released,  was  there  any  mis- 
taking what  "  Progress  "  the  solitary  *'  Pilgrim  " 
had  made  toward  the  "  Celestial  City!  " 

Many  a  child  of  God  is  now  struggling  with 
the  heavy,  cramping  fetters  of  care,  toil,  anxiety; 
bodily  weakness  while  the  spirit  is  willing,  a  scanty 
purse  while  the  heart  is  royal  in  its  generosity, 


40  FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 

faltering  and  unready  utterance  while  the  soul  is 
rich  with  Christian  wisdom  and  Christian  love — 
and  these  dear  children  of  God  bewail  their 
straitened  and  hedged-up  condition  and  deplore 
that,  as  it  seems  to  them,  their  reward  must  be  so 
small  in  heaven. 

But,  no;  God's  eye  is  on  the  wheels  within  as 
well  as  on  the  dial  without.  The  good  work  of 
grace  goes  on  quite  as  fast  in  private  as  in  public, 
in  poverty  as  in  wealth,  in  sorrow  as  in  joy,  in  toil 
and  care  as  in  luxury  and  ease.  Not  one  good  de- 
sire is  lost,  no  faithful  duty  forgotten,  no  closet 
prayer  unheard,  no  offering  however  small  un- 
treasured,  no  silent  tear-dropping,  unheeded.  And 
in  that  brighter  world  to  which  we  are  all  hasten- 
ing, that  world  of  exact  and  righteous  recompense, 
where  the  true  worth  of  all  souls  will  be  unveiled 
to  the  gaze  of  the  holy,  the  hands  will  at  once  move 
over  all  the  drear  spaces  of  this  our  earthly  weak- 
ness, tribulation  and  sorrow,  to  their  true  place  and 
will  tell  the  hours  of  our  secret,  patient,  loving 
endeavors. 

Now  and  then  a  day  is  dark  from  early  morn- 
ing until  almost  evening.  What  if  some  one 
should  say,  "  The  sun  is  feeble  or  he  is  idle,  or  he 


THE   DIALS  AND    THE   WHEELS  41 

is  unfaithful  to-day.    He  has  not  moved  from  his 
place  in  the  east  since  daybreak?  " 

But  has  he  not  been  moving?  And  has  he  not 
been  shining?  Has  he  not  run  his  race  diligently 
and  successfully?  Or  has  he  lost  his  power  to 
shine  because  for  a  time  the  obstructing  clouds 
have  intercepted  his  beams?  We  have  seen  such 
questionings  and  criticisms  answered  when  toward 
evening  the  clouds  have  broken  and  mountain  and 
valley  have  been  flooded  with  light  and  when  the 
very  clouds  that  darkened  his  way  have  been 
irradiated  with  his  brightest  beams.  Then,  too, 
has  his  place  in  the  far  west  told  how  steadily  and 
patiently  he  has  kept  up  his  constant  and  faithful 
march  through  the  heavens.  "  Then  " — what  a 
rapture  for  us  in  that  little  word,  "  then  " — 

"  THEN  SHALL  THE  RIGHTEOUS  SHINE  FORTH 
LIKE  THE  SUN  IN  THE  KINGDOM  OF  THEIR 
FATHER." 


VII 
UNITY    IN    DIVERSITY 


UNITY   IN   DIVERSITY 


All  snow  is  not  the  same  snow,  but  there  Is 
one  snow  of  the  mountain-top  and  another  of  the 
plain;  one  white  and  ghstening,  and  another  the 
red  snow  of  the  Arctics  and  the  Alps.  There  is 
one  beauty  of  the  star-flake  and  another  of  the 
pyramid-flake,  for  flake  differeth  from  flake  In 
beauty.  Yet  though  coming  down  to  us  in  hun- 
dreds of  these  difl^erent  shapes,  from  the  simple 
star  to  the  elaborate  wheel  and  axle,  the  beautiful 
meteor  crystallizes  all  Its  "  icy  atoms  "  around  one 
and  the  self-same  hexagonal  base. 

All  Scripture  is  not  the  same  Scripture;  but 
there  is  one  Scripture  of  history  and  another  of 
prediction;  one  of  proverb  and  another  of  prom- 
ise; one  of  anti-type  and  another  of  type.  There 
is  one  glory  of  the  Prophets  and  another  glory  of 
the  Psalms  and  another  glory  of  the  Evangelists; 
for  Scripture  differeth  from  Scripture  in  glory;  yet 

45 


46  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

all  from  the  Alpha  of  Genesis  to  the  Omega  of 
"  Revelation  "  clustered  about  one  and  the  self- 
same resplendent  form,  that  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

The  snow  is  impartial  in  the  bountifulness  of 
its  blessing.  Neglected  by-ways  and  loneliest 
lanes  are  by  it  paved  as  smoothly  as  the  finest  and 
most  frequented  avenues.  Whatever  man  makes 
beautiful  the  silent  architect  of  the  clouds  makes 
incomparably  more  beautiful,  and  yet  with  Nat- 
ure's true  "  democracy  of  art  "  the  most  unsightly 
and  deformed  partake  the  comeliness  of  this  di- 
vine decoration.  The  poorest  hovel  is  enamelled 
as  brilliantly  as  the  costliest  mansion;  the  rounds 
of  the  hod-carrier's  ladder  are  sheathed  with  as 
pure  a  porcelain  as  the  stately  turret  against  which 
it  leans ;  the  farmer's  fence-pickets  and  rails  are  as 
richly  furred  as  the  arched  gateway  of  the  prince. 
Shop  and  store,  wharf  and  warehouse,  halls  of  jus- 
tice and  domes  of  state,  share  alike  with  the  tem- 
ples of  religion  the  same  bright  and  celestial  vis- 
itation. 

So  does  the   "  Word  "  come  down  and  touch 


UNITY   IN    DIVERSITY 


47 


with  undiscriminating  beauty  all  the  diversified 
interests  and  relationships  of  men.  While  there  is 
no  merely  secular  learning  or  refinement  that  is 
beyond  the  need  of  the  purifying  Word,  there  is, 
on  the  other  hand,  no  ignorance  or  vlleness  but  is 
susceptible  of  its  heavenly  adornment.  So  plainly 
and  with  such  heart-gladness  may  we  read  even  in 
the  snow  the  loving  purpose  of  God,  that  our 
homes  and  our  places  of  business,  our  learning  and 
our  art,  our  private  interests  and  our  public  trusts 
may  be  alike  transfigured  with  the  irradiation  of 
his  divine  Word. 


VIII 

NATURE'S    GUARANTEE    FOR    THE    PROS- 
PERITY   OF   THE   "WORD" 


NATURE'S    GUARANTEE    FOR   THE   PROSPERITY 
OF   THE    "WORD" 


In  the  making  of  his  rain  and  snow  God  might, 
if  he  saw  fit,  employ  human  helpers.  Lifting 
them  up  into  his  vast  laboratory  of  winds  and 
vapors.  He  might  take  them  then  to  the  top  of 
his  high  aerial  towers  and  show  them  how 
through  his  finely  woven  sheets  of  cloud-gauze  He 
sifts  his  silver  shot  upon  the  earth.  Or,  conduct- 
ing them  through  his  lofty  ethereal  mint  He  might 
teach  them  how  to  use  the  tiny  dies  with  which 
He  stamps  the  snow-flake,  so  that  they  too  might 
scatter  this  beautiful  coin  of  the  heavens  broadcast 
over  the  ground. 

Human  helpers  He  has  seen  fit  to  employ  in 
the  greater  work  of  giving  to  the  world  his  reveal- 
ing Word.  It  is  because  of  his  having  chosen  out 
holy  men,  and  because  of  his  having  lifted  them  up 
by  his  Holy  Spirit  to  the  heights  of  his  immeas- 
urable wisdom,  fore-knowledge,  holiness  and  love, 

51 


52 


FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 


that  they  were  enabled  to  satisfy  the  world's  spir- 
itual hunger  with  the  heavenly  manna  of  the 
Written  Word. 

"  But  not  all  the  rain  and  snow,"  objects  one, 
"  goes  to  nourish  the  growth  of  plants  that  they 
may  give  seed  to  the  sower  and  bread  to  the  eater." 

True,  indeed,  it  is  that  by  far  the  greater  part 
of  that  which  comes  down  does  "  return  thither" ; 
ascending  as  vapor  from  land,  lake  and  ocean,  and 
running  back  to  the  ocean  in  rills  and  rivers.  Yet 
this  which  seems  at  first  to  be  but  idle  and  profit- 
less repetition  is  part  of  one  and  the  same  mighty 
scheme  of  world-wide  irrigation  for  the  eventual 
support  of  human  life. 

So,  although  the  whole  of  all  true  and  faithful 
use  of  the  "  Word  "  may  not  go  directly  to  either 
the  conversion  of  sinners  or  the  edification  of 
saints;  yet,  as  indirect  results,  the  world  gets 
higher  civilization,  freer  and  more  stable  govern- 
ments, purer  homes  and  better  institutions  of  learn- 
ing— society  erecting  these  as  so  many  barriers  of 
public  and  social  order  behind  which  the  Church 
flourishes  and  souls  are  saved. 


NATURE'S   GUARANTEE  53 

How  almost  ludicrously  abortive,  In  this  view 
of  the  matter,  are  all  the  attempts  of  Its  enemies 
to  destroy  the  power  of  the  living  Word  or  to  pre- 
vent its  still  wider  dissemination !  Meteorology 
has  made  wonderful  progress  of  late,  but  where  is 
the  weather-expert  who  has  yet  attained  such  mas- 
tery of  the  elements  that  he  can  hinder  the  rain 
from  "  coming  down,  or  the  snow  from  heaven 
and  watering  the  earth?  " 

Should  the  time  ever  come  when  scoffers  and 
sceptics  can  stop  the  on-going  of  God's  great  sys- 
tem of  world-wide  evaporation  and  irrigation; 
make  a  screen  wide  enough  to  cover  all  the  con- 
tinents and  all  the  oceans  and  so  keep  the  vapors 
from  rising  and  the  rains  and  snows  from  falling, 
then  they  may  hope,  but  not  till  then,  to  keep  the 
Word  of  God  from  going  forth  and  "  ACCOM- 
PLISHING THAT  WHICH  HE  PLEASES  AND  PROS- 
PERING IN  THE  THING  WHERETO  HE  SENDS  IT." 


IX 
CAUGHT   AWAY 


CAUGHT  AWAY 

"  Make  yourself  necessary  to  the  world  "  has 
been  considered  good  counsel  for  young  men.  It 
is.  But  the  true  reliever  of  human  want  and  woe 
is  warm  with  another  and,  if  possible,  a  nobler  in- 
spiration; to  make  himself  unnecessary  to  men  at 
the  earliest  moment  possible.  It  is  the  false  phy- 
sician who  ties  himself  to  his  patient  by  retard- 
ing his  recovery.  It  is  the  false  advocate  who 
glues  himself  to  his  client  by  purposely  prolong- 
ing the  suit.  It  is  the  false  mechanic  who  con- 
tinues his  employer's  dependence  on  him  by 
stretching  out  the  job.  It  is  the  false  priest  who 
binds  the  trembling  devotee  to  himself  and  to  "  the 
Church  "  by  cruel  chains  of  symbol  and  rite  and 
relic — keeping  fast  shut  the  doors  of  prophecy 
and  evangel,  which,  once  opened  by  loving  inter- 
pretation of  Christ,  would  send  the  released  wor- 
shipper rejoicing  on  his  way. 

57 


58  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

After  the  baptism  of  the  Ethiopian  eunuch,  the 
Authorized  Version  says  that  the  "  Spirit  caught 
away  Philip  that  the  eunuch  saw  him  no  more; 
and  he  went  on  his  way  rejoicing."  The  Re- 
vision corrects  thus :  "  The  Spirit  caught  away 
Philip  and  the  eunuch  saw  him  no  more  for  (gar) 
he  went  on  his  way  rejoicing."  Now,  as  "  gar  " 
is  the  word  in  all  the  manuscripts,  and  is  never, 
either  in  the  classics  or  elsewhere  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, used  in  the  sense  of  "  kai  "  (and),  we  can 
but  wonder  at  the  inaccuracy  of  the  Common 
Version,  and  the  more  so,  as  a  beautiful  and  in- 
structive thought  is  veiled  and  hidden  by  the  mis- 
translation. 

Like  Cornelius,  the  eunuch  had  come  to  believe 
that  the  God  of  the  Hebrews  was  the  true  God. 
Like  Cornelius,  he  desired  nothing  so  much  as  to 
know  how  this  one  true  God  might  be  most  ac- 
ceptably worshipped.  He  had  come  all  the  way 
from  Ethiopia,  believing  that  God  must  be  best 
worshipped  in  his  own  temple  in  his  own  holy  city. 
His  worshipping  had  been  no  perfunctory  per- 
formance of  an  ecclesiastical  requirement.  What 
he  saw  and  heard  and  did  in  Jerusalem  inflamed, 
but  did  not  satisfy,  his  devotion.    He  sought  bet- 


CAUGHT  AWAY  59 

ter  knowledge  by  an  earnest  study  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  which  he  had  also  accepted  as  the  Word 
of  God,  making  a  real  "  vade  mecum  "  of  the 
sacred  roll,  which  he  was  taking  back  with  him 
to  his  distant  home. 

But  what  is  darker  than  a  dark  lantern  till  the 
door  of  the  lantern  is  opened?  And  such  was  the 
passage  in  Isaiah  to  the  eunuch  (dark  without, 
though  full  of  divinest  radiance  within),  till 
Philip  came,  sent  of  God,  to  open  the  door  and  let 
the  guiding  light  stream  forth — one  and  the  self- 
same Spirit,  inditing  the  Scripture,  exciting  the  in- 
quiry, supplying  the  interpreter — a  trinity  of  lov- 
ing acts,  all  conspiring  to  the  saving  of  a  now 
intelligently  believing  soul. 

And  now  the  "  for  "  gives  as  reason  why  the 
Spirit  "  caught  away  Philip  "  that  the  eunuch,  hav- 
ing had  his  doubts  resolved,  and  having  believed 
on  that  Jesus  whom  Philip  had  so  clearly  preached 
to  him,  "  went  on  his  way  rejoicing." 

Philip  has  fulfilled  his  ministry  to  the  eunuch. 
What  need  that  he  should  remount  the  chariot 
now  that  he  has  sealed  the  convert's  faith  with 
the  water  of  baptism?  What  further  need  of  the 
candle  now  that  the  sun  has  risen?    Of  the  guide 


6o  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

when  he  has  brought  us  to  our  destination?  Of 
the  usher  when  he  has  led  us  to  the  joy  of  the 
King's  presence  ? 

And  for  us  what  a  rapture  would  that  be,  to  be 
"  caught  away  by  the  Spirit  "  into  the  spirit  world 
just  when,  and  only  when,  as  minister,  teacher, 
editor,  author,  mother,  father,  sister,  brother, 
child,  or  friend,  we  had,  before  those  with  whom 
we  here  journeyed  for  a  little,  so  preached  or  lived 
Christ  that,  kindled  with  glad  faith  and  hope  of 
our  own  inspiring,  they  to  whom  we  had  thus 
faithfully  fulfilled  our  appointed  ministry  of  love 
should  go  on  for  the  remainder  of  their  way  "  re- 
joicing IN  Jesus." 


X 

THE    LIKELIHOOD    OF    A   RESURRECTION 


THE   LIKELIHOOD    OF   A    RESURRECTION 


Aware  that  to  even  honest  scepticism  so  mys- 
terious a  change  must  seem  at  least  highly  im- 
probable, an  inspired  biologist,  well  versed  in  the 
life  problems  of  two  worlds,  submits  an  argument 
from  analogy,  to  remove  this  stumbling-block  of 
improbability  out  of  the  way  of  belief  in  the  resur- 
rection. 

He  bases  his  argument  on  the  fact,  open  to  all, 
that  material  substance  is  endowed  with  properties, 
undergoes  changes  and  puts  on  appearances  so  un- 
like one  to  another  as  beforehand  to  have  balked 
conjecture  and  even  to  have  defied  belief.  He 
refers  us  to  that  broad  and  most  obvious  classifica- 
tion of  substances  as  mineral,  vegetable  and  ani- 
mal, where  the  boundaries  are  in  general  so  clearly 
defined  that  we  speak  of  these  three  departments 
as  so  many  separate  kingdoms.  Not  content  with 
this  generic  distinction,  he  points  us  to  the  unlike- 
ness  in  form  and  structure  of  different  species  in 

63 


64  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

each  of  these  kingdoms,  *'  Every  seed  has  Its  own 
body."  Mosses,  grains,  flowers,  trees  have  each  a 
grace  or  majesty  pecuHarly  its  own.  Earth-worm 
and  eagle,  violet  and  oak,  dull  clay  and  dazzling 
diamond,  are  contrasts  beyond  all  human  precon- 
ception. So  with  unorganized  matter  in  its  great 
masses :  "  There  is  one  glory  of  the  sun  and  an- 
other glory  of  the  moon  and  another  glory  of  the 
stars;  for  star  differeth  from  star  in  glory."  And 
may  it  not  well  be  that  this  natural  body  of  ours, 
sown  though  it  be  in  weakness,  dishonor  and  cor- 
ruption, shall  yet  be  raised  a  spiritual  body  In  In- 
corruption,  in  glory  and  in  power? 

This  argument  from  analogy,  while  of  Itself  It 
establishes  no  truth,  is  still  a  proper  rebuke  to  all 
those,  more  numerous  now  than  they  were  in  the 
Apostles'  unscientific  days,  who  most  unscien- 
tifically transfer  their  own  self-constituted  judg- 
ment of  an  improbable  event  to  the  testimony  on 
which  the  event  itself  rests;  who  instead  of  Im- 
partially weighing  the  evidence  and  cordially 
accepting  whatever  fact  is  established  by  it,  be- 
wilder themselves  and  others  by  foolish  and 
unreasonable  questions  about  the  method  of  the 
fact;  who,  to  take  the  instance  In  point,   before 


THE   LIKELIHOOD   OF  A    RESURRECTION        65 

allowing  belief  in  the  resurrection  would  ask  and 
would  insist  on  having  the  questions  answered, 
"  How  are  the  dead  raised  up;  with  what  body  do 
they  come?  " 

You  hold  in  your  hand  a  seed  which  has  been 
sent  you  by  a  friend  in  a  distant  country,  who 
assures  you  that  from  it  will  come  a  surpassingly 
beautiful  flower.  But  you  say,  "What;  a  beau- 
tiful flower  out  of  this  dull,  dry,  hard,  insignificant- 
looking  thing!  Tell  me  first  how  it  is  going  to 
come,  and  with  what  size,  odor,  color  and  shape." 
In  your  incredulity  and  scorn  you  cast  your  seed 
into  the  fire.  Are  you  not  justly  accounted  a 
"  fool?  "  How  are  these  questions  of  yours  to  be 
answered?  In  one  way  and  in  one  way  only — by 
first  burying  the  seed.  If  you  quarrel  about  that 
and  look  for  an  answer  in  any  other  way,  how  can 
you  expect  from  the  open  and  fair-minded  either 
sympathy  or  respect? 

Death  having  been  ordained  by  God  to  be  the 
antecedent  of  a  new  and  higher  life,  your  seed's 
prophecy  cannot  be  fulfilled  "  except  it  die."  Con- 
vinced at  last  that  in  no  other  way  can  God's 
thought  and  purpose  be  either  realized  or  under- 
stood, asking  no  more  captious  or  foolish  ques- 


56  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

tions,  you  bury  your  seed  and  wait  patiently  the 
appointed  period  of  its  germination  and  growth. 
Then,  but  not  before,  you  will  get  your  answer. 

Instead  of  being  staggered,  then,  or  dispirited 
by  the  death  of  a  Christian  friend  or  by  the  cer- 
tainty of  our  own  death,  we  are  to  draw  from  it, 
rather  an  argument  for  our  continued  existence  in 
a  higher  and  nobler  sphere.  We  do  know  that 
from  the  lily  bulb  does  come  the  lily,  from  the  tiny 
acorn  the  majestic  oak,  but  as  to  the  manner  of 
our  own  resurrection,  as  to  the  capabilities,  struct- 
ure and  form  of  the  new  spiritual  body — these  are 
questions  to  which  in  the  very  nature  of  things  we 
can  have  complete  answer  only  when  God  shall 
give  it  to  us  by  actual  experience  of  such  a  change 
and  of  such  a  body. 


XI 

THE    PSYCHICAL    AND    THE 
PNEUMATICAL  BODY 


THE    PSYCHICAL   AND   THE 
PNEUMATICAL  BODY 


Although  the  rendering,  "  There  is  a  natural 
(born)  body,"  is  interpretation,  not  translation — 
("  Psychical  "  (breathing)  being  St.  Paul's  term) 
— we  may  yet,  without  error,  accept  the  interpreta- 
tion and  so  the  rendering,  since  of  a  natural  or 
born  body  no  term  is  perhaps  more  comprehen- 
sively descriptive  than  "  psychical  "  or  breathing. 
A  born  body  as  soon  as  born  begins  to  breathe,  and 
only  as  long  as  it  breathes  does  it  live.  Not  that 
the  breath  is  the  life,  for  the  unborn  body  lives, 
though  unbreathing.  Yet  after  birth  the  life- 
principle  can  no  longer  do  its  work  of  nourish- 
ment and  growth  without  the  aid  of  respiration. 

This  characterizing  of  the  body  we  now  have 
as  an  inbreathed  and  inbreathing  body  is  no  in- 
vention of  his  own,  the  Apostle  hastens  to  assure 
us.  It  is  not  even  a  new  conception,  he  at  once 
adds.     Rather,  it  is  but  part  of  the  inspired  ac- 

69 


70 


FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 


count  of  man's  original  creation:  "For  so  it  is 
written.  The  first  Adam  was  made  a  living  soul  " 
— made  a  living  soul  by  God  "  breathing  into  his 
nostrils  the  breath  of  life  " — "  soul  "  here  plainly 
referring  to  animal  life,  having  to  do  only  with 
the  sense,  appetite,  and  the  outer  visible  world. 

While  the  root  meaning  of  "  air  "  or  "  breath  " 
is  the  same  for  both  "  pneumatical  "  and  "  psy- 
chical," yet  by  New  Testament  and  by  latest  meta- 
physical appropriation  as  well,  the  pneumatical  has 
for  its  sphere  the  supersensible  and  for  its  seat  in 
man  his  higher  rational  and  moral  faculties.  This 
gives  us  to  understand,  I  think,  what  the  Apostle 
has  in  mind  when  he  writes,  "  And  there  is  a  pneu- 
matical (a  spiritual)  body."  And  as  explanatory 
of  this,  "  The  last  Adam  was  made  a  quickening 
spirit."  The  contrast  lies  between  "  quickened  " 
and  "  quickening," 

It  is  not  by  the  rational  spirit  that  the  body  we 
now  have  either  is  kept  alive  or  was  given  life  to  at 
the  first.  Virtually  and  essentially  the  natural  and 
the  spiritual  are  independent,  one,  of  the  other, 
each  having  its  own  distinct  and  separate  sphere 
— both  designed,  it  is  true,  to  work  together  in 
complete  harmony,  yet  so  often  and  so  deplorably 


PSYCHICAL  AND   PNEUMATICAL  BODY  71 

working  at  cross-purposes  that  only  by  persistent 
warfare  can  the  spiritual  conquer  peace  with  the 
insurgent  animalism  of  the  lower  nature. 

With  this  animalism  with  all  its  alien,  hamper- 
ing, and  menacing  conditions  the  "  spiritual  body  " 
has  nothing  to  do.  Sustained  directly  and  wholly 
by  the  "  quickening  spirit,"  there  is  in  it  neither 
call  nor  occasion  for  the  expenditure  of  a  separate 
vital  force.  Shot  through  and  throughout  by  the 
spirit  itself,  it  responds  instantly  and  obediently  to 
all  the  spirit's  desires,  movements,  and  needs. 
Having  to  be  neither  repaired  nor  nourished,  it  is — 
without  weakness,  weariness,  or  pain — the  ever- 
ready  and  tireless  servant  of  the  free  spirit. 

It  is  such  a  body  that  is  now  the  fit  abode  and 
Instrument  of  the  ascended  Christ,  and  such,  we 
are  assured,  is  to  be  the  spiritual  body  of  every- 
one who  is  begotten  of  Him.  This  comes  to  the 
believer,  the  Apostle  reasons,  by  virtue  of  that 
law  of  our  spiritual  heredity  which  in  its  opera- 
tion is  in  the  truest  sense  as  natural  as  is  the  law 
of  our  psychical  descent:  "  For,  as  we  have  borne 
the  image  of  the  earthly  one  (such  the  full  render- 
ing) we  shall  also  bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly 
One;  "  that  is,  as  by  generation  we  have  received 


72  FROM   TALK   TO   TEXT 

from  our  first  progenitor,  Adam,  a  natural  body, 
the  image  or  likeness  of  his,  so  by  virtue  of  our 
regeneration  shall  we  receive  from  our  second 
progenitor,  Christ,  a  spiritual  body,  "  gloriously 
fashioned  "  after  the  image  or  likeness  of  His 
own. 


XII 


"IN    MY   NAME:"     OR,   OFFERS    OF   NAT- 
URAL  AND    SPIRITUAL    HELP 


"IN    MY    NAME:"    OR,   OFFERS    OF   NATURAL 
AND   SPIRITUAL   HELP 


The  condition  of  "  name  "  is  implied  in  the 
offers  which  men  make  to  one  another  of  help  for 
the  supplying  of  their  natural  needs.  Just  what 
and  how  much  is  meant  by  the  familiar  "  Is  there 
anything  I  can  do  for  you  to-day?  "  depends  alto- 
gether on  the  "  name  "  of  the  person  asking  you 
the  question;  not  the  irrelevant  family  name,  but 
the  business  name,  signifying  what  the  possessor 
of  it  has  qualified  himself  to  do.  It  means  en- 
tirely different  things  according  as  it  is  asked  by 
your  physician,  your  banker,  your  lawyer,  or  your 
grocer.  The  "  anything  "  means  only  anything  in 
the  line  of  their  respective  callings  or  professions. 
Because  your  physician  once  told  you  to  call  upon 
him  at  any  time  for  "  anything  "  you  might  wish 
done    for    either    yourself    or    your    family    and 

75 


76  FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 

promised  that,  on  being  thus  requested,  he  would 
do  it,  you  would  not  for  a  moment  think  of  ask- 
ing him,  on  the  strength  of  that  promise,  to  dis- 
count a  note  for  you,  or  to  teach  your  children,  or 
to  conduct  for  you  a  case  in  court.  Other  services, 
if  requested,  he  may  do  or  decline  to  do;  he  binds 
himself  to  such  services  only  as  belong  to  his 
"  name  "  or  profession. 

So  the  promise  of  Jesus.  "  Jesus  "  was  not  a 
family  designation  given  Him,  as  names  are  gen- 
erally given  by  parents.  It  is  a  working  name, 
and  was  given  by  the  angel  before  His  birth  to 
show  what  His  life  work  was  to  be:  "  His  name 
shall  be  called  Jesus,  for  He  shall  save  His  peo- 
ple from  their  sins."  For  other  reliefs  and  de- 
liverances we  may  ask  Him.  All  our  earthly  sor- 
rows, griefs,  pains,  anxieties,  we  may  bring  to 
Him,  and  those  of  our  friends.  Our  prayers  He 
hears  and  will  answer,  not  necessarily  by  removal 
of  the  sorrow,  pain  or  infirmity,  for  that  He  has 
not  promised,  but  by  what  may  be,  and  often  is 
felt  to  be,  more  than  an  equivalent — by  strength- 
ening, sustaining,  comforting  us  under  even  our 
deepest  sorrows,  our  sorest  afflictions.    To  remove 


"IN   MY   NAME" 


77 


these  burdens  He  does  not  promise;  to  "  sustain  " 
us  under  them,  He  does. 

But  that  which  is  the  heaviest  burden  of  all,  the 
burden  of  our  sins,  that  burden  we  may  con- 
fidently, unwaveringly,  ask  Him  to  remove.  From 
poverty,  from  painful  accident,  from  bodily  weak- 
ness and  suffering,  from  anguish  of  bereavement, 
He  may  not  save  us;  from  our  "  sins  "  He  will. 
No  prayer,  humble  and  earnest,  for  the  pardon  of 
our  sins,  and  for  help  in  ridding  ourselves  of  their 
power  over  us,  can  be  amiss  or  can  go  unanswered. 
There  is  no  room  for  self-debate,  doubt  or  hesi- 
tation. 

Such  prayer  being  offered  in  His  "  name " 
claims  the  promise,  and  the  promise  will  be  surely, 
lovingly,  blessedly  fulfilled.  We  may  not  grow 
in  wealth,  we  shall  grow  in  grace  and  in  the 
knowledge  of  God.  We  may  not  recover  lost 
bodily  strength;  we  shall  be  "  strong  in  the  Lord 
and  in  the  power  of  His  might."  We  may  not  be 
able  to  stay  the  perishing  of  the  outward  man; 
the  *'  inward  man  will  be  renewed  day  by  day." 
Jesus  may  not  save  us  from  death  and  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  grave;  He  will  surely  save  us  from 
the  second  death  and  from  all  defilement  of  sin. 


^8  FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 

And  He  will  (for  to  this  His  "name"  is 
pledged),  He  will  at  last  "present  us  faultless 
before  the  presence  of  His  glory  with  exceeding  " 
and  with  eternal  "  joy." 


XIII 

IF;    OR,  SPIRITUAL    LIKE    NATURAL    SUC- 
CESS,  STRICTLY    CONDITIONED 


IF;   OR,    SPIRITUAL    LIKE    NATURAL    SUCCESS, 
STRICTLY   CONDITIONED 


The  first  syllable  of  the  word  "  success  "  indi- 
cates an  underlying  cause.  It  suggests  an  ascend- 
ing from  somewhat  beneath  explanatory  of  the 
ascent.  Any  success  answering  by  strict  construc- 
tion to  the  name  is  bottomed  on  that  indispensable 
foundation  of  first  things,  another  and  borrowed 
designation  of  which  is  "  principles." 

In  the  practice  of  the  arts,  whether  liberal  or 
useful,  this  is,  without  question,  complaint  or  ex- 
ception, taken  to  be  true.  Of  them  all,  not  one  is 
or  can  be  successfully  pursued  save  in  strict  accord- 
ance with  this,  the  first  of  the  three  great 
"  Primary  Laws  of  Thought,"  "  Whatever  is,  is," 
or,  as  I  venture  on  phrasing  it,  according  to  the 
absolute,  unchangeable  and  everlasting  is-ness  of 
things.  The  most  successful  worker  in  wood, 
stone  or  metal  is  he  who  makes  most  patient  and 
exhaustive  study  of  the  distinctive  and  inalienable 

8i 


g2  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

properties  of  the  materials  he   proposes  to  em- 
ploy,. 

From  this  ordained  and  immutable  is-ness  of 
things  it  is  useless  for  artist,  artisan  or  inventor 
trying  to  escape.  The  crucible  is  not  mocked. 
Iron  is  iron  and  gold  is  gold.  Mix  and  melt  as 
he  will,  the  would-be  transmuting  alchemist  has 
but  his  labor  for  his  pains.  "  If,"  or  rather  a 
series  of  "  ifs,"  limits  and  controls  the  answer  to 
even  the  prayer  which  we  are  taught  daily  to  offer 
for  our  daily  bread.  "  If  "  the  flour  be  good, 
"  if  "  the  yeast  be  good,  "  if  "  the  oven  be  at  a 
good  heat,  the  baker  enriches  your  table  with  a 
good  loaf.    If  not,  not. 

That  word  of  the  Commandment — "  For  He 
is  a  jealous  God,"  we  come  better  to  understand 
and  so  less  to  dread,  when  we  thus  come  to  see  that 
Nature  is  jealous  too;  that  she  has  her  Second 
Commandment  as  well;  when  we  come  to  see 
further  that  all  which  she  means  by  that  is,  that 
she  insists  on  being  recognized — known  over  and 
over  again — and  by  all  the  "  generations  "  simply 
for  what  she  is.  It  is  not  enough  to  have  once 
known  her;  we  must  re-know  her  on  every  new 
occasion.     The  careless  engineer  is  reminded  by 


IF;   OR,  SPIRITUAL   LIKE   NATURAL   SUCCESS      83 

an  observant  bystander  that  he  is  letting  the  wa- 
ter get  too  low  in  his  boiler.  He  replies  airily, 
"  And  you — to  talk  to  me  about  steam."  The 
boiler  explodes.  The  Sinai  of  the  unheeded  warn- 
ing thunders  in  his  ears;  "  You  may  have  known 
me  once,  but  you  have  now  assigned  you  a  review 
of  the  old  and  forgotten  lesson."  Not  one  of  the 
great  forces  of  Nature  with  which  we  "  have  to 
do  "  but  has  this  jealousy,  that  it  will  everywhere 
and  always  be  recognized  and  respected  for  what 
it  is. 

In  prison  or  the  electric  chair  the  criminal  is 
set  to  re-learn  the  forgotten  lessons  of  the  law ;  the 
slanderous  gossip  in  the  solitariness  of  social  ostra- 
cism, to  learn  what  belongs  to  decent  companion- 
ship; the  slovenly  farmer,  clumsy  mechanic  and 
careless  tradesman  are  re-taught  by  lessening  In- 
comes the  lessons  of  thrift. 

A  millennium  and  a  half  before  our  Christian 
era,  a  selected  people  were  led  from  bondage  to 
freedom.  They  have  come  at  length  into  the  new 
land  where  Is  to  be  begun  a  new  experiment  of 
national  life.  Will  they  make  of  their  great 
opportunity   a   national   and    Individual   success? 


84  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

Knowing  well  that,  would  they  build  lastingly, 
they  must  build  on  those  first  which  are  also  the 
lasting  things,  their  great  Leader  and  Law-giver 
prescribes  for  them  the  way.  He  names  to  them 
two  mountains,  their  lofty  peaks  fronting  one  an- 
other across  a  deep  valley.  From  the  top  of  Geri- 
zim  were  to  be  proclaimed  the  unalterable  condi- 
tions of  promised  and  guaranteed  success;  from 
the  top  of  Ebal  the  downward  path  of  threatened 
failure — of  loss,  disaster  and  ruin. 

From  these  same  two  opposing  summits,  which 
I  would  re-name  Mt.  "  If  "  and  Mt.  "  If  Not," 
still  sound  to  us  for  the  successful  ordering  of  our 
whole  individual,  domestic,  social,  municipal  and 
national  life,  the  same  unchangeable  assurances  of 
good  and  of  evil: 

OF  GOOD  FROM  MT.  IF ;  OF  EVIL  FROM  MT.  IF  NOT. 


XIV 
PASSING   AWAY    BY   FULFILMENT 


PASSING   AWAY    BY   FULFILMENT 


Scatter  plaster  over  a  wheat  field;  the  white 
patches  are  visible  for  a  few  days,  after  which 
they  disappear,  and  the  ground  is  a  uniform  brown 
or  black  as  before.  Is  the  plaster  destroyed? 
Passing  away  by  absorption  into  new  and  more 
valuable  forms,  it  reappears  in  blade,  stalk,  ear 
and  grain.  The  leaves  of  our  forests  fall,  but  it 
is  only  to  rise  again,  mounting  in  the  stems  they 
nourish  to  loftier  heights  and  spreading  out  in 
wider  amplitudes  of  growth.  The  rich  mould 
cast  about  our  fruit  trees  is  heavy,  inert,  cumbrous ; 
but,  sought  out  and  vitalized  by  the  roots,  it  ac- 
quires power  and  motion  and  upward  impulse,  and 
takes  on  shapes  of  glad  and  living  beauty,  and 
wealth  of  fruitfulness.  Just  where  the  great  river 
ceases  to  be  a  river,  it  finds  enlargement  in  the  ex- 
panding lake  or  estuary.  As  affluent  and  prophecy 
the  river  passes  away;  as  fulfilment  it  abides,  only 
with  freer  scope  and  larger  room. 

This  distinction  in  Nature  illustrates  the  meth- 
87 


88  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

ods  to  be  employed,  if  the  Law  of  the  Spirit  in  its 
aspect  of  penal  severity  is  to  pass  away  from  those 
who  are  under  bondage  to  it  by  reason  of  trans- 
gression. That  method  is  not  to  take  part  with 
the  criminal  against  the  law.  It  is  not  to  tell  him 
that  the  law  is  inhumane  and  merciless.  It  is  not 
to  sympathize  morbidly  with  him,  as  if  he  were  the 
victim  of  circumstances  and  a  martyr  to  civil  or- 
der. It  will  not  do  to  say  to  the  inmates  of  our 
prisons,  "  The  law  shows  a  revengeful,  vindictive 
spirit,  to  shut  you  up  in  these  dreadful  walls,  sep- 
arate you  from  your  friends  and  affix  upon  you 
these  badges  of  dishonor."  To  say  that  would 
but  make  the  matter  a  thousand  times  worse; 
worse  for  the  criminal,  as  well  as  worse  for  so- 
ciety. It  would  encourage  him  in  crime,  and  so 
complete  his  ruin.  What  we  desire  is,  that  the 
law  may  pass  away  from  the  transgressor  as  an 
object  of  antipathy  and  of  dread.  And  this  is  to  be 
effected,  not  by  our  "  destroying  "  the  law,  but  by 
his  "  fulfilling  "  it.  Offenders  must  be  made  to  see 
the  wisdom,  reasonableness,  safety,  and  greater 
satisfaction  of  virtuous  citizenship,  and  to  surren- 
der their  lawless  propensities  intelligently  and 
freely.    They  must  be  led  to  see  that  the  attitude 


PASSING  AWAY  BY  FULFILMENT  89 

of  society  toward  them  is  not  one  of  gratuitous 
and  hostile  menace,  but  of  calm  justice  and  neces- 
sary self-defence.  And  something  wonderful  is  it 
to  see  how  completely  the  law,  as  an  object  of 
aversion  and  terror,  passes  away  from  the  violator 
of  it  at  once,  so  soon  as  he  comes  into  relations 
with  it  of  right  and  willing  obedience. 

This  same  distinction  leads  us  on  to  the  true 
idea  of  political  freedom,  and  points  out  how  that 
idea  is  to  be  realized.  It  instructs  us  that  the 
millennium  of  political  freedom  is  not  to  be 
brought  in  through  the  destruction  of  govern- 
ment; not  by  communism,  agrarianism,  or  nihil- 
ism; not  by  the  burning  of  decrees,  codes  and 
statutes ;  not  by  the  tearing  down  of  senate  houses 
and  thrones,  or  the  assassination  of  presidents  and 
kings.  Political  abuses,  oppressions,  inequalities 
are  surely  to  pass  away,  but  not  through  the  icono- 
clasm  of  mobs.  "  All  the  overthrows  of  all  the 
tyrannies  of  ancient  or  modern  times  were  never 
able  to  make  corruption  free.  Let  changes  of 
policy  or  administration  be  as  specious  as  they 
may,  the  political  suffering  will  only  deepen  until 
the  personal  reform  comes  to  redeem  the  land." 

This  far-reaching  declaration  gives  us,  as  well, 


g,0  FROM   TALK   TO   TEXT 

the  true  conception  and  method  of  religious  free- 
dom. Everywhere  we  see  men  trying  to  break 
bands  and  cast  away  cords.  "  Are  we  slaves," 
they  are  demanding,  "  that  we  must  be  chained 
down  forever  by  menacing  prohibitions,  under 
which  the  generations  have  groaned  from  the  be- 
ginning? Are  we  never  to  outgrow  the  narrow 
dogmas,  hampering  superstitions  and  craven  fears 
of  ignorance  and  childishness?  Are  we  never  to 
be  done  with  the  rusty,  antiquated  creeds  of  our 
forefathers?  Must  we  ever  gasp  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  old  and  smothering  bigotry?  Is  it  not 
time  that  reason  assert  its  majority  and  break  loose 
from  the  tyranny  of  the  past? 

Yes,  there  is  to  be  progress,  enlargement  of 
privilege,  increase  of  spiritual  liberty.  There  is 
to  be  a  passing  away  of  prohibition,  restraint  and 
dogma;  but  this  is  not  to  be  by  annihilation  of 
any  just  obligation,  or  of  any  truth.  Christ,  the 
animating,  guiding  spirit  of  all  true  enlightenment 
and  progress,  has  purposed  that  better  future 
when  men  shall  be  free  from  galling  yokes.  But 
He  it  is  who  "  verily  "  assures  us  that  the  ends  of 
law  are  not  to  be  secured  through  destruction  of 
its  outward  forms.     He  is  not  deceived,  and  will 


PASSING  AWAY  BY  FULFILMENT  91 

not  be  mocked  by  that  pretended  superiority  to 
the  letter  which  only  veils  a  lack  of  its  spirit.  That 
independence  of  restraint  for  which  many  sigh, 
comes,  and  can  come,  only  as  the  great  underlying, 
ever-abiding  principles  of  civil  order,  moral  pre- 
cept and  spiritual  worship  are  incorporated  into 
the  soul;  only  as  men  become  free  in  the  love  of 
right  and  of  order,  in  perfected  love  toward  God 
and  man. 

"  In  all  its  sacred  constitution,"  says  Bishop 
Huntington,*  "  society  preaches  the  sacredness  of 
law,  and  so  points  with  reverent  finger  from  hu- 
man law  to  the  divine,  to  Him  In  whose  breast 
both  have  their  seat  at  last.  By  being  servants  we 
become  children  and  heirs.  By  law  we  gain  lib- 
erty. By  waiting  at  the  foot  of  Sinai  we  are  taken 
into  Olivet  and  Tabor.  The  tables  of  stone  lean 
against  the  cross.  Moses  is  followed  by  the  Mes- 
siah. Beyond  the  valleys  of  subjection  rise  the 
eternal  hills  of  peace.  The  years  of  unquestion- 
ing and  obedient  toil  ended,  there  is  proclaimed 
the  great  Sabbatic  festival,  where  law  is  love,  and 
order  is  choice,  and  government  is  Fatherhood, 
and  the  Ruler's  will  is  the  impulse  of  every  heart." 

*  Social  Aspects  of  Christianity. 


XV 
THE    ONE   THOU    SHALT 


THE   ONE   THOU   SHALT 


The  old  Portuguese  navigators  had  hoped  to 
discover  a  passage  to  the  East  Indies  around  the 
southernmost  point  of  the  continent  of  Africa. 
Repulsed  again  and  again  by  stormy  headlands, 
they  yet  persevered  till  confronted  at  length  by  a 
promontory  with  so  wild  a  sea  that  in  their  despair 
of  doubling  it  they  called  it  "  Cape  Non."  What 
they  had  in  vain  attempted  was  to  gain  the  coveted 
prize  by  getting  past  a  succession  of  frowning 
"  Thou  Shalt  Nots."  Columbus,  with  an  enter- 
prise born  of  a  finer  and  more  comprehensive  in- 
sight, turning  his  back  on  these  denying  and  pro- 
hibiting headlands,  directs  the  prows  of  his  vessels 
in  a  straight  course  through  the  open  Atlantic; 
with  the  happy  result  that  his  eyes  are  ere  long 
greeted  with  the  sight  of  a  New  World  with  pos- 
sibilities of  a  freedom,  grandeur,  wealth  and 
power  far  surpassing  the  proudest  triumphs  of  the 
Old. 

95 


^6  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

That  was  the  glorious  solution  of  the  most  pro- 
found and  far-reaching  geographical  problem  of 
the  time. 

The  deepest,  the  most  practically  important 
ethical  problem  of  the  ages  had  been  to  find,  were 
it  possible,  some  single  and  effective  "  Thou  Shalt  " 
which  might  serve  as  a  complete  substitute  for  an 
indefinite  number  of  forbidding,  impotent  and  en- 
slaving "  Thou  Shalt  Nots."  Can  aught  exceed 
the  concise  beauty  with  which  the  greatest  of  the 
Apostles  has  resolved  for  us  this  intricate  Inquiry: 
"  For  this.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery; 
Thou  shalt  not  kill;  Thou  shalt  not  steal;  Thou 
shalt  not  bear  false  witness;  Thou  shalt  not  covet; 
and  if  there  be  any  other  commandment,  [any 
other  '  Thou  Shalt  Not,']  It  Is  briefly  comprehend- 
ed in  this  saying :  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself."  In  this  brief  "  comprehension "  of 
countless  negations  under  a  single  positive  precept 
Is  the  beautiful  simplicity  and  moral  sufficiency  of 
love. 


XVI 

THE   ONE    RELIGION;     OR,   BACK    TO 
SINAI    BY  WAY  OF   CALVARY 


THE  ONE    RELIGION;    OR,    BACK   TO    SINAI    BY 
WAY    OF    CALVARY 


President  Lincoln  began  his  ever-memorable 
Gettysburg  address  by  saying:  "Fourscore  and 
seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  on  this 
continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty  and 
dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  cre- 
ated equal," 

The  Hebrew  nation,  too,  was  "  conceived  in 
liberty  "  and  brought  forth  from  bondage;  but  it 
was  dedicated  to  the  far  deeper  and  broader 
proposition,  that  "  supreme  love  to  God  and  equal 
love  to  our  neighbor  is  the  full  sum  of  universal 
human  duty." 

Jesus  himself  gave  to  the  world  no  new,  either 
life-law  or  heart-law.  He  came  not  as  a  law- 
giver, but  as  a  keeper  of  that  law,  which  had 
already  come  "  by  Moses."  Not  one  jot  or  tittle 
did  He  add  to  that  which  had  been  already  given. 
There  was  nothing  to  add.  To  an  inquirer  He 
once  said  that  all  which  any  man  needs  in  the  way 

99 


lOo  FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 

of  either  devotional  or  ethical  religion  is  that  he 
keep  perfectly  the  commandments  epitomized  so 
long  before  by  Moses  himself  as  whole-heart  love 
to  God  and  equal  love  to  one's  neighbor.  By  say- 
ing that  "  on  these  two  commandments  hangs  all 
the  law  "  he  declared  them  to  be  the  one  and  only 
religion  of  the  past.  By  saying  that  on  these  hang 
all  the  prophets,  he  proclaimed  that  they  are  the 
one  and  only  religion  of  the  future ;  that,  in  short, 
there  never  has  been,  is  not  now  and  never  will  be 
any  other  religion — the  religion  of  all  men  and 
for  all  time;  and  we  may  add,  for  all  eternity. 
Are  any  waiting  with  unsatisfied  ears  for  some 
"  last  word  "  to  be  spoken  on  this  great  matter  of 
religion?  The  last  word  was  long  ago  spoken. 
The  first  word  is  also  the  last.  The  Alpha  and 
the  Omega  are  one. 

The  "  religions  "  of  the  world  is,  therefore, 
strictly  speaking,  a  false  and  misleading  plural. 
What  is  needed  is  but  to  re-define;  not  to  define 
anew. 

Joined,  however,  to  this  one,  unchangeable 
Sinaitic  foundation  was  this  other  and  altogether 
unique  element  in  Judaism,  that  it  provided  for 
the  forgiveness  of  individual  transgression  against 


THE  ONE  RELIGION  lOl 

its  organic  law  and  for  a  return  to  It,  through  a 
suffering  and  sacrifice  other  than  those  of  the 
offender  himself.  And  just  this,  as  I  understand 
It,  Christianity  means  and  Is.  The  work  which 
Jesus  took  upon  him  to  do  was  the  work  of  a 
physician;  to  restore  sick  souls  to  that  wholeness, 
another  name  for  which  is  health.  But  health  be- 
ing normal,  simple  and  single,  while  disease  is 
abnormal,  complex  and  multitudinous,  the  world's 
spiritual  pharmacy  (its  so-called  "  religions  ") 
had  been  as  intricate  and  diversified  as  its  physical 
pharmacy — vain  attempts  to  get  back  something 
consciously  lost.  It  was  not  a  new  purse  to  which 
the  woman  with  lighted  candle  returned  the  lost 
coin ;  not  a  new  fold  to  which  the  shepherd  brought 
back  from  the  mountains  his  truant  sheep ;  it  was 
to  the  same  old  home  to  which  the  rejoicing  father 
welcomed  his  once  unfillal  but  now  repentant  child. 
Hence  the  misnomer  of  speaking  (except  in  a 
popular  way)  of  the  "  Christian  religion,"  akin  to 
the  mistake  we  should  make  were  we  to  speak  of 
the  health  which  has  been  restored  through  the  use 
of  medicine  as  "  medicated  health."  Christianity 
is  not  a  religion ;  it  is  God's  wise  and  gracious  way 
of  bringing  lost  men  back  to  religion. 


102  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

Jesus  is  this  way  of  return.  Is  there  any  other 
way?  And  following  that  question  is  this  other 
and  vitally  practical  one,  "  What  modification  of 
the  original,  the  normal  disposition  of  loyalty,  is 
produced  in  such  of  the  once  disloyal  as  accept  the 
true  sacrifice?  What  new  element  in  their  love, 
the  presence  of  which  becomes  a  sure  test  of  the 
sincerity  of  their  return? 

For  one,  I  am  satisfied,  as  a  basis  of  spiritually 
fraternal  and  sacramental  communion,  with  a  one 
article  creed — the  creed  of  a  truly  penitent  heart. 
I  take  it  from  the  Old  Testament  Scripture,  al- 
though finding  it  abundantly  approved  and  in- 
dorsed in  the  New.  "  I  believe,"  so  it  would  be 
read  or  recited,  "  that  the  Lord  is  nigh  unto  them 
that  are  of  a  broken  heart,  and  saveth  such  as  be 
of  a  contrite  spirit."  On  a  heart-acceptance  of 
that  simple  creed  alone  how  could  we  consistently 
refuse  to  admit  to  our  communion  any  Gentile  or 
any  Jew?  For  if  it  be  a  true  creed,  then  all  who 
in  heart  embrace  it  both  have  "  God  nigh  to  them  " 
and  are  "  saved." 

It  only  remains  to  ask,  "  Where  is  this  broken 
and  contrite  heart  to  be  found?  "  It  matters  not 
in  the  least  to  me  where  any  others  may  find  it. 


THE   ONE   RELIGION 


103 


Let  them  find  it  wherever  and  however  they  can. 
For  myself,  I  find  it  only  at  the  feet  of  Him  who 
is  at  once  for  me  both  ark  and  altar,  both  priest 
and  sacrifice.  Here,  "  cut  from  the  olive-tree 
which  is  wild  by  nature,"  I  find  myself  "  grafted 
contrary  to  nature  "  into  that  "  good  olive-tree  " 
which  the  greatest  of  Christian  apostles  tells  me 
is  the  still  firm,  immovable  "  root  " — not  upborne 
by  the  ingrafted  Gentile  branches,  but  itself  up- 
bearing them.  Here,  here  only,  do  I  find  myself 
returning  through  penitent,  grateful  love  to  whole- 
heart  love  to  God  and  equal-heart  love  to  my 
neighbor.  Here,  and  only  here,  do  I  find,  the  clew 
which  leads  me  safely  and  rejoicingly  out  of,  and 
past,  the  whole  bewildering  labyrinth  of  tangled 
traditions,  theologies,  catechisms,  sects  and  creeds; 
and  out  of  the  darker  and  more  bewildering 
labyrinth  of  my  sins. 

When,  speaking  in  metaphor,  all  the  true  Israel 
of  God  shall  meet  at  length  in  one  common  as- 
sembly, the  meeting-place  will  be  again  on  the 
broad  plains  about  the  base  of  Sinai.  Thither,  to 
this  "  one  fold,"  is  the  Good  Shepherd  pointing 
ever  his  one  flock.  But  it  will  be  far  otherwise 
then  than  it  was  when  his  people  were  first  led 


I04 


FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 


thither  by  Moses.  The  same  two  tables  of  the 
law  will  Indeed  be  there.  They  will  stand  high 
aloft,  crowning  the  summit  of  the  once  awful 
mount,  but  no  longer  shooting  lightnings  through 
black,  enveloping  smoke-clouds  followed  by  peals 
of  affrighting  thunder.  They  will  shine,  rather, 
from  afar  to  all  nations  with  a  mild  and  winning 
lustre;  instead  of  the  old  and  terrifying  "Thou 
shalt  not,"  the  two  tables  are  now  turned  toward 
one  another  and  are  become  one  in  the  changed 
figure  of  a  cross;  and  on  its  extended  arms  is  now 
seen  emblazoned  "  Love  to  God  and  Love  to 
man  " — an  "  ideal  to  draw  the  nations  to  higher 
and  higher  reaches  of  civilization  and  progress." 

Here,  too,  will  be  solved  at  last  the  now  per- 
plexing question  of  Christian  unity;  and  not  that 
only,  but  of  Christian  and  Jewish  unity  as  well. 
For  when,  gathered  out  of  all  nations  we  shall 
meet  in  concert  on  the  heavenly  plains,  what  will 
be  our  one  song  but  the  "  Song  of  Moses  and  the 
Lamb  "?  And  what  is  that  song  but  the  blended 
song  of  the  *'  way  "  and  of  the  lost  way  found? 


XVII 
TRUE   FRIENDS    OF    CHRIST 


TRUE   FRIENDS    OF   CHRIST 


There  is  a  kind  of  natural  friend-making, 
friend-regarding,  friend-keeping,  and,  if  need  be, 
friend-restoring,  which  has  in  it  the  necessity  of 
rightfully  claimed  authority  on  the  one  hand  and 
of  due  obedience  to  It  on  the  other.  This,  for 
lack  of  any  simpler  name,  I  call  institutional 
friend-making  and  keeping.  Taking  the  word  in 
its  literal  sense,  an  "  institution  "  Is  a  community, 
all  the  rights,  duties  and  privileges  of  which  find 
ground  of  standing  in  itself.  It  implies  a  com- 
mon interest  for  which  all  its  members  are  sup- 
posed to  be  working — and  not  only  working,  but 
working  in  harmony,  each  with  all  the  rest.  It 
implies  cheerful  submission  to  necessary  rules.  In 
order  that  some  may  not  work  at  cross-purposes 
with  others.  The  beehive  Is  an  Institution.  The 
drone  says,  "  I  believe  In  the  freedom  of  the  will; 
I  don't  propose  to  take  orders  from  anyone,  not 
even  from  your  queen;  I  will  work  or  not  as  I 

107 


I08  FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 

choose,  and  I  choose  not  to  work."  Or,  suppose 
a  working  bee  to  set  up  for  himself  and  say,  "  Yes, 
I  will  work,  but  only  in  my  own  way — here,  there, 
anywhere,  as  best  suits  my  fancy."  While  each 
of  these  might  claim  to  be  still  counted  as  a  friend, 
he  would  really  be  and  would  be  reckoned  to  be 
an  enemy — an  enemy  not  only  of  the  queen-bee, 
but  of  the  whole  hive.  As  a  matter  of  observa- 
tion, we  know  that  the  drone  is  treated  as  an 
enemy,  and,  after  fair  warning — for  the  good  bees 
are  patient — if  the  recalcitrant  does  not  come  into 
harmony  with  the  rest  and  with  the  law  of  the 
hive,  he  is  cast  out.  He  that  is  not  with  the  hive  is 
against  it;  so  that,  although  cast  out,  really  he  is 
self-ostracized,  self-banished. 

The  solar  group  of  heavenly  bodies  is  more 
than  the  sun  plus  so  many  planets  with  their  satel- 
lites. They  are  a  solar  system.  They  not  only 
stand,  but  they  "  stand  together,"  as  the  Psalmist 
says  and  as  the  word  "  system  "  means.  The  rea- 
son why  they  stand  at  all  is  because  they  do  stand 
together.  Each  has  his  own  impulse  of  motion, 
but  these  individual  impulses  are  held  in  willing 
subjection,  to  the  one  great  central  authority,  the 
sun.     Suppose  one  of  the  planets,  Mars,  for  ex- 


TRUE  FRIENDS  OF   CHRIST 


109 


ample,  resolving  to  be  free  and  to  have  a  route 
and  time-table  of  his  own,  should  refuse  longer 
to  pay  this  obedient  though  distant  homage  to  the 
sun  ?  There  is  but  one  way  in  which  this,  its  self- 
willed  ambition,  could  be  gratified.  It  must  break 
away  from  the  sisterhood  of  planets  and  speed 
along  its  own  headstrong  and  companionless  way 
— speed  along — how  long,  and  how  far?  Until 
the  mighty  cable  of  Its  home-attraction,  every  mo- 
ment spun  thinner  and  thinner  from  the  retreating 
axle,  shall  have  dwindled  to  the  finest  filament; 
until  at  length  its  broken  gossamer-ends  float  idly 
out  into  dark  and  returnless  exile.  Then  a  last 
good-by  to  one  with  whom  we  had  counted  loving- 
ly together  so  many  happy  because  obedient  years. 
The  family  is  an  institution,  an  institution  es- 
tablished by  God  for  the  welfare  and  happiness  of 
its  members.  But,  in  order  that  it  may  stand  for 
that,  Its  members  must  stand  together  under  Its 
appointed  head,  just  as  the  members  of  the  body 
must  stand  together  under  its  appointed  head.  If 
foot,  hand,  eye  or  ear  say,  '*  I  will  take  no  orders 
from  the  head,"  It  Is  no  longer  a  friend  of  the 
body,  but  an  enemy.  Saying,  "  I  am  not  of  the 
body  "  does  not  make  It  so.    A  boy  says,  "  Father, 


no  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

I  am  a  friend  to  you  and  to  the  family,  but  I  am 
a  free-thinker,  and  I  am  not  going  to  take  orders 
from  you  or  from  any  head  but  my  own."  That 
is  what  it  is  for  a  boy  to  be  headstrong.  Then  the 
father  will  say — he  must  say:  "  My  son,  God  has 
made  me  the  head  of  this  household.  We  cannot 
have  two  heads  here,  and  whenever  there  is  a  dif- 
ference between  us,  you  must  submit  your  will  to 
mine.  You  are  no  friend  of  either  me  or  the  fam- 
ily unless  you  do."  If  the  boy  persist  in  his  de- 
termination to  disregard  the  law  of  the  family, 
there  is  but  one  thing  for  him  to  do — get  what  he 
can  from  his  father  and  then  take  his  journey  into 
a  far  country,  the  farther  the  better — better  for 
himself  and  better  for  the  forsaken  father  and  the 
deserted  home — better,  that  is,  until  he  shall,  with 
chastened  spirit,  seek  again  the  welcoming  embrace 
of  his  father's  forgiving  love. 

"  Ye  are  my  friends,  if  ye  do  whatsoever  I  com- 
mand you,"  is,  therefore,  a  reasonable,  as  it  is  a 
natural,  condition. 

But  had  there  been  no  such  true  friends  of  God 
before  Jesus?  Yes,  as  clouds  far  up  the  sky  show 
the  glory  of  the  yet  unrisen  sun.  Jesus  had  been 
the  pattern  of  life  for  all  the  foregoing  genera- 


TRUE   FRIENDS  OF   CHRIST  m 

tions  of  men — the  prophetic  search-light  sig- 
nalHng  to  patriarch  and  prophet  on  the  clouds  of 
those  ancient  skies,  the  outlined  glory  of  the  com- 
ing sun,  the  Sun  of  Righteousness — of  One  who 
should  make  it  clear  to  all  the  world  what  a  right 
life  is  by  living  it,  just  as  the  sun  makes  it  clear 
as  day  what  sunshine  is  by  shining  it;  make  it  clear 
as  day  that,  in  order  to  be  a  friend  of  God,  not 
only  must  obedience  take  the  form  of  love,  but 
love  must  prove  itself  to  be  love  by  taking  the 
form  of  full  and  unquestioning  obedience.  Abra- 
ham saw  the  heralding  signal,  as  later  the  Wise 
Men  of  the  East  saw  their  guiding  star,  and  like 
them,  when  he  saw  it,  he  "  rejoiced  with  exceed- 
ing great  joy."  Called  to  go  out  into  a  place 
which  he  should  afterward  receive  for  an  inherit- 
ance, he  obeyed;  "  and  he  went  out,  not  knowing 
whither  he  went."  For  this  unquestioning  obe- 
dience it  was  that  he  was  called  the  "  Friend  of 
God."  And  as  from  contemplation  of  that  fore- 
tokened better  day  and  of  that  foreseen  nobler 
man,  Abraham  drew  impulse  to  make  his  own  day 
a  better  day  by  making  his  own  life  a  nobler  life, 
so  may  we  derive  the  inspiration  and  encourage- 
ment to  nobler  living,  not  only  from  the  example 


112  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

of  Jesus,  but  also  from  the  promised  certainty  of 
the  friendlier  world  that  is  yet  to  be. 

When  Jesus,  our  Elder  Brother,  was  about  to 
leave  the  world.  He  said  to  Mary,  weeping  at  the 
open  and  empty  tomb,  "  Go  to  my  brethren  and 
say  unto  them,  I  ascend  to  my  Father  and  your 
Father,  and  to  my  God  and  your  God." 

His  wonderful  mission  to  earth,  then,  had  not 
been  in  vain.  He  did  not  leave  it  until  He  had 
won  this  great  ascension  triumph  of  love — a  lit- 
tle company  left  behind  Him  whom  He  could  call 
His  "brethren";  those  now  owning  His  Father 
as  their  Father,  His  God  as  their  God — until  He 
could  look  up  and  say,  "  These  are  now  in  the 
world  —  through  Me  made  Thine  —  and  now, 
Father,  I  come  to  Thee." 

Only  he,  then,  is  a  friend  of  God  who  gives  to 
God  that  supreme  place  in  his  affections  and  life 
which  of  right  belongs  to  God.  A  man  who  is  not 
my  father,  or  a  woman  who  is  not  my  mother,  may 
not  demand  of  me  filial  reverence  or  affection ;  but 
the  man  who  is  my  father  and  the  woman  who  Is 
my  mother  may  and  must  demand  them.  I  may 
withhold  honor  from  others,  but  I  may  and  must 
honor  my  father  and  my  mother.    Is  that  because 


TRUE   FRIENDS   OF   CHRIST  113 

the  commandment  says  so  ?  No ;  it  is  not  the  com- 
mandment that  makes  the  duty;  it  is  the  duty  that 
makes  the  commandment. 

What!  "Sermons  in  stones"  then?  Yes — 
those  ten  short  sermons  which  together  we  call  the 
"  Decalogue,"  were  already  imbedded  in  the  two 
stone  tables  before  Moses  hewed  them  out  from 
the  speechless  rock-girt  side  of  Sinai.  What  did 
God  do  when  He  touched  them  with  His  finger? 
He  made  the  hitherto  inarticulate  stones  speak  out 
the  great  fact  which  from  eternity  had  been  true, 
that  there  is  one  God  only.  Creator,  Upholder  and 
Lord  of  all ;  to  speak  forth  what  is  eternally  right, 
that  to  Him  obedient  love  is  due  from  His  chil- 
dren, and  equal  love  of  men  one  to  another  as 
brethren,  because  children  of  one  Father.  About 
these  glorious  truths  an  estranged  and  darkened 
world  had  been  holding  its  unsyllabled  peace,  un- 
til at  length,  touched  by  the  finger  of  God,  the 
very  "  stones  cried  out." 

But  what,  when  to  this  message  from  Sinai, 
megaphoned  by  thunders  and  emblazoned  by  light- 
nings, the  stony  hearts  of  His  people,  harder  than 
Sinai's  flint,  gave  forth  no  answer  of  filial  love — 
not  even  to  the  tender  pleading  of  God?     "  If  I 


114  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

be  a  Father,  where  Is  My  honor,  and  if  I  be  a  mas- 
ter, where  is  My  fear?  " 

Could  even  God  himself  do  more?  Yes;  there 
was  one  thing  more  He  could  do,  and  that  one 
thing  He  did.  He  sent  His  only  begotten  Son 
into  the  world,  which  had  lost  that  knowledge  out 
of  its  heart,  to  show  in  a  more  heart-compelling 
way  just  what  it  is  to  be  a  true  child  and  so  a  true 
friend  of  God — to  translate  the  provincial  He- 
brew characters  of  the  stone  tablets  into  the  easily 
read  and  universally  understood  language  of  a 
truly  filial  and  fraternal  life. 

How  soon  did  Jesus  begin  this  work  of  trans- 
lation? "  Know  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my 
Father's  business?  "  This  when  but  a  boy  of 
twelve  years.  *'  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him 
that  sent  Me."  "  The  Father  hath  not  left  me 
alone,  for  I  do  always  those  things  that  please 
Him."  "  Even  as  I  keep  my  Father's  command- 
ments and  abide  in  His  love  " — are  some  of  the 
utterances  that  marked  His  whole  ministry  of  love. 
And  at  the  end,  how  well  worth  the  doing  did  He 
find  all  this  had  been,  when,  not  doubtful,  down- 
cast or  dumb,  but,  with  the  serene  joy  of  one  con- 
scious of  having  always  been  a  true  son.  He  lifted 


TRUE   FRIENDS  OF  CHRIST  115 

up  His  eyes  to  heaven  and  said,  "  Father,  the  hour 
is  come ;  I  have  glorified  Thee  on  the  earth ;  I  have 
finished  the  work  which  Thou  gavest  me  to  do." 

And  what  the  last  words  of  this  loving  child 
of  God,  of  this  our  Elder  Brother,  to  us  yearning 
and  striving  to  follow  in  the  same  steps  which  He 
trod  toward  the  same  Father's  house?  The  same 
last  words  for  us  as  for  the  loved  ones  around 
Him,  whom  He  was  about  to  leave:  "As  the 
Father  hath  loved  me,  so  have  I  loved  you ;  con- 
tinue ye  in  my  love.  And  these  are  the  things  I 
command  you,  that  ye  love  one  another." 

And  His  last  prayer  for  us?  The  same  as  His 
last  prayer  for  them :  "  That  they  all  may  be  one, 
as  Thou,  Father,  art  in  me  and  I  in  Thee;  that 
they  also  may  be  one  in  us;  that  the  world  may  be- 
lieve that  Thou  hast  sent  me." 


XVIII 
FROM    LIKELIHOOD   TO    CERTAINTY 


FROM    LIKELIHOOD    TO    CERTAINTY 


The  author  of  the  third  Gospel  was  a  man  who 
had  been  trained  to  do  his  own  thinking.  He 
was  not  a  man  to  believe  a  story  and  then  tell  it 
simply  because  other  men  were  believing  and  tell- 
ing it;  above  all  so  wonderful  a  story,  and  so 
important  if  true,  as  that  concerning  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.  We  find  him  accordingly  making  an 
exhaustive  study  of  all  the  alleged  facts  in  the 
case,  and  although  not  an  eye-witness  himself,  yet 
applying  the  accepted  laws  of  evidence  to  the  tes- 
timony of  those  who  had  been  such  witnesses. 
Having  satisfied  himself  that  the  things  which  he 
heard  were  true,  we  find  him  going  further;  put- 
ting into  a  written  and  permanent  form  for  the  in- 
formation of  others  the  results  of  his  own  candid 
and  patient  investigation. 

But  had  not  similar  biographies  of  Christ  been 
already  given  to  the  world?  Yes,  and  that  not 
a  few.    He  tells  his  friend  Theophilus  at  the  out- 

119 


220  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

set  that  "  many  "  had  undertaken  to  arrange  Into 
a  connected  account  the  oral  statements  of  those 
who  "  from  the  beginning  were  eye-witnesses  and 
ministers  of  the  word."  Yet  he  saw  that  some- 
thing more  and  something  better  remained  to  be 
done.  It  may  be  that  some  of  those  many  narra- 
tives were  accurate  enough  as  far  as  they  went, 
but  that  they  lacked  minuteness  and  completeness. 
Of  others  the  credibility  may  not  have  been  suffi- 
ciently attested.  Some,  of  Jewish  origin,  were 
not  likely  to  take  that  broad  and  comprehensive 
view  of  the  work  and  spirit  of  Christ  which  a  con- 
verted Gentile,  as  he  himself  was,  would  be  quali- 
fied to  give.  We  find  him,  therefore,  planning 
two  distinct  treatises;  the  former  (his  Gospel)  to 
Include  facts  concerning  Christ  omitted  by  other 
writers;  the  latter  ("The  Acts")  to  record  the 
spread  of  Christianity  through  the  labors  of  the 
Apostles.  Privileged  to  be  the  Intimate  friend  and 
companion  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  he  Is  careful  to  Im- 
prove so  great  an  opportunity  to  verify  the  current 
annals  and  traditions  respecting  Jesus.  And  hav- 
ing, as  he  says,  accurately  traced  the  whole  story 
from  the  very  first.  Instead  of  sitting  down  to  enjoy 
in  a  selfish  way  the  fruits  of  his  Inquiry,  he  uses 


FROM   LIKELIHOOD    TO   CERTAINTY  121 

them  to  enlighten  and  confirm  such  as  may  be  of 
a  wavering  or  uncertain  faith. 

I.  Greater  numbers  than  ever  before  are  to-day 
by  tongue  or  pen  bearing  testimony  for  Christ.  But 
in  this  is  no  reason  why  any  and  every  disciple 
should  not  bear  for  Him  his  own  personal  and  in- 
dependent witness.  Variety  of  testimony  must  be 
set  over  against  variety  of  need.  On  no  two  of 
the  "  great  multitudes  "  physically  sick  or  disabled 
did  Jesus  perform  precisely  the  same  cure.  Each 
case  had  its  peculiarities  for  which  each  receiver  of 
help  had  his  own  special  thanks  to  pay  and  his 
own  special  testimony  to  give.  "  Go  home  to  thy 
friends  and  tell  them  what  great  things  the  Lord 
hath  done  for  thee^  And  so  one  went  and  said, 
"See,  He  has  restored  my  withered  arm;"  an- 
other, "  He  has  cleansed  me  of  my  leprosy;  "  and 
another,  "  He  has  cured  me  of  my  palsy."  More 
ready  should  each  one  be  who  has  been  spiritually 
healed  to  show,  for  the  honor  of  the  Master  and 
for  the  good  of  men,  how  good  and  true  he  has 
found  the  gospel  to  be  for  him.  "Forasmuch  as 
many  have  taken  it  in  hand,  it  seemed  good  to  me 
also." 

What  Is  the  secret,  on  the  human  side,  of  the 


122  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

marvellous  success  the  gospel  has  already  achieved 
but  that  this  and  that  individual  Christian  has 
stood,  each  in  his  place,  and  has  kept  that  place 
for  Christ  a  stronghold  of  truth  and  righteous- 
ness? Is  the  church  the  "  salt  of  the  earth  "  ?  It 
is  because  each  separate  salt-grain  having  kept  its 
own  savor,  the  corruption  of  the  world  has  crept 
to  that  grain  but  there  it  has  stopped.  Is  the 
church  the  "  light  of  the  world  "?  Why,  but  that 
this  and  that  Christian  is  keeping  his  own  single 
lamp  brightly  burning?  What  is  needed  more? 
That  every  lamp  be  taken  from  under  the  bed  or 
bushel  and  set  each  on  its  own  candlestick. 

No,  not  one  earnest  pastor  or  preacher,  not  one 
watchful  elder  or  deacon,  not  one  devoted  Sun- 
day-school superintendent  or  teacher,  not  one  good 
teacher  of  sacred  music  nor  a  single  singer,  not 
one  faithful  father  or  mother,  not  a  solitary  work- 
ing disciple  of  any  grade  whatsoever  can  be  spared. 
Not  one  sincere  prayer,  exhortation  or  private  en- 
treaty or  admonition  can  the  church  or  the  world 
afford  to  lose.  That  "  many  "  others  are  faith- 
fully exercising  their  gifts  is  no  excuse  for  neglect- 
ing our  own.  Rather,  the  sight  of  so  many  try- 
ing to  do  or  to  bear  lovingly  for  Christ  should 


FROM   LIKELIHOOD    TO   CERTAINTY  123 

make  it  seem  "  good  to  us  also  "  to  do  what  in  us 
lies  for  the  same  Saviour,  both  theirs  and  ours. 
Nor, 

II.  Should  we  be  kept  from  doing  whatever 
commends  itself  to  us  as  good  to  be  done  from  a 
foolish  fear  lest  we  should  seem  to  be  copying 
after  somebody  else?  Our  Evangelist  is  greatly 
to  be  commended  for  having  been  willing  to  fol- 
low the  lead  of  others.  Now  and  then  is  a  man 
who  will  do  nothing  unless  he  can  be  the  first  to 
devise  and  the  first  to  execute.  Had  he  only  been 
the  first  to  think  of  doing  this  or  that  or  the  first 
to  suggest  it,  he  would  be  foremost  in  doing  it. 
While  it  is  indeed  well  to  be  on  the  watch  for  new 
and  better  ways  in  which  to  do  good  and  to  be 
foremost  in  doing  it,  it  is  the  higher  nobleness  of 
a  true  humility  to  be  willing  to  be  stirred  up  to 
good  works  by  another.  The  next  best  thing  to 
setting  a  good  example,  is  to  follow  one.  Is  some 
man,  yes,  or  some  woman,  before  me  in  Christian 
sagacity  or  zeal?  Let  not  a  wicked  and  weak 
pride  keep  me  from  doing  my  duty  simply  because 
I  have  been  reminded  of  it  by  another.  *'  How 
can  I  be  most  useful  in  our  common  Master's 
cause?  "  is  the  question  which  should  most  deeply 


124 


FROM   TALK   TO   TEXT 


engage  every  Christian  heart.  This  free,  broad, 
unselfish  feeling  is  the  most  fruitful  source  of  im- 
provement in  methods  of  Christian  work,  leading 
pastors  to  seek  the  best  modes  of  employing  and 
presenting  truth,  Sunday-school  superintendents 
to  adopt  freely  what  has  elsewhere  proved  most 
efficient  in  that  department  of  labor,  parents  to 
inquire  for  and  to  put  in  practice  the  best  means 
for  the  right  training  of  their  children.  Discard- 
ing nothing  because  it  is  old,  adopting  nothing  be- 
cause it  is  new,  it  weighs  candidly  the  suggestions 
and  practices  of  other  Christians  and  of  other 
bodies  of  believers.  If  it  finds  anything  better 
than  its  own  in  another  denomination,  it  does  not 
hesitate  to  appropriate  it;  borrow  it,  if  you  choose. 
Only  a  narrow,  miserable,  unchristian  pride  could 
prompt  me  to  say,  "  I  will  do  nothing  that  looks 
like  copying  after  them."  Rival  denominations? 
It  is  a  pernicious  phrase.  Never  in  any  Christian 
heart  should  there  be  a  particle  of  the  feeling 
which  those  words  express.  While  holding  fast  to 
our  own  established  views  of  polity  and  doctrine, 
we  should  emulate  one  another  not  so  much  in  the 
building  up  of  denominations  as  in  earnest  en- 
deavors to  convert  sinners   and  to  make  better 


FROM   LIKELIHOOD    TO   CERTAINTY  125 

Christians.  Whoever  will  show  us  how  these 
things  can  best  be  done  is  our  best  teacher,  our 
truest  benefactor. 

It  is  thought  that  some  of  the  '*  many  "  of 
whom  Luke  speaks  were  authors  either  of  spurious 
gospels  or  of  narratives  drawn  up  without  due  re- 
gard to  accuracy  of  either  statement  or  arrange- 
ment, and  that  it  was  for  this  reason,  in  part,  that 
Luke  undertook  to  compose  a  full,  orderly  and 
trustworthy  history.  In  such  expressions  as  "  Hav- 
ing had  perfect  understanding  of  all  things," 
"  From  the  very  first,"  "  To  write  unto  thee  in 
order,"  "  That  thou  mightest  know  the  certainty 
of  these  things;  "  in  these  expressions  one  writer 
sees  an  implied  accusation,  a  lurking  censure  of  the 
"  many  "  for  the  meagreness  or  inexactness  of 
their  productions ;  so  that  our  Evangelist  seeks  not 
only  to  do  a  good  thing  better,  but  to  counteract 
the  effect  of  much  which  was  positively  false  and 
injurious.     And, 

III.  Here  is  an  example  still  more  worthy  of 
our  imitation,  for  we  have  here  an  inspired  mode 
of  neutralizing  the  influence  and  preventing  the 
spread  of  religious  error.  That  mode  is  not  by 
abusing  and  denouncing  those  who  may  have  put 


126  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

forth  false  statements  of  either  Scripture  history 
or  Christian  doctrine,  but  by  ourselves  examining 
more  thoroughly  than  ever  before  the  foundations 
of  truth,  consulting  candidly  and  patiently  the  best 
sources  of  information  so  as  to  have  a  "  perfect 
understanding  of  it  from  the  very  first,"  and  then 
by  earnestly  and  patiently  setting  forth  in  speech 
and  in  life  the  convictions  thus  attained. 

Luke  doubtless  consulted  Paul  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  both  his  Gospel  and  the  "  Acts."  Those 
books  must  have  received  the  Apostle's  sanction 
as  we  know  they  received  the  sanction  of  the  prim- 
itive churches.  Our  Evangelist  might  have  spent 
his  time,  strength,  parchment  and  Ink,  in  ridiculing 
or  execrating  those  partial,  puerile  and  perverted 
records  already  In  existence.  But  obeying  the  dic- 
tates of  a  higher  and  wiser  teaching,  he  devoted 
his  energies.  Instead,  to  a  thorough  revision  of 
documents  and  traditions  with  a  view  to  the  per- 
fect elucidation  of  the  true  gospel  history,  and  to 
the  recasting  of  It  Into  a  new  and  more  acceptable 
form.  The  success  of  his  two  books  thus  carefully 
attested  and  prepared  was  as  sure  as  it  has  been 
permanent.  These  two  books  have  an  immovable 
place  In  the  sacred  canon.    Luke's  gospel  with  the 


FROM   LIKELIHOOD    TO   CERTAINTY  127 

three  other  canonical  gospels  have  quietly  dis- 
placed all  of  those  spurious  and  apocryphal  writ- 
ings, and  have  consigned  most  of  them  to  perpetual 
oblivion. 

Let  us  in  our  conflict  with  error  follow  so  noble 
an  example ;  be  encouraged  by  so  signal  a  success. 
Let  us  go,  each  for  himself,  to  the  pure  sources 
of  truth.  Let  us  in  our  studies  seek  ever  the  guid- 
ance of  the  all-enlightening  Spirit.  Let  us  resolve 
that  we  will  have  for  our  belief  the  sure  sanction 
of  the  Word  candidly  interpreted.  Then  let  us  in 
the  spirit  of  meekness  and  of  love  set  forth  the 
results  of  our  examination  and  the  joy  of  our  ex- 
perience. "  Wisdom  will  be  justified  of  her  chil- 
dren." They  who  are  of  Christ  will  hear  His  voice 
and  will  follow  Him.  They  who  are  led  by  the 
Spirit  will  distinguish  the  true  from  the  false,  the 
precious  from  the  vile,  that  which  is  of  God  from 
that  which  is  of  man  or  the  devil.  God  will  vin- 
dicate His  own  truth  by  giving  it  enlargement  and 
success.  The  way  to  scatter  darkness  is  not  to 
rage  against  it,  but  to  kindle  a  light.  We  go  out 
together  on  some  moonless  and  starless  night. 
Above  us  is  a  high  huge  wall  of  midnight  dark- 
ness.    How  is  this  darkness  to  be  gotten  rid  of? 


128  FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 

Shall  we  ask  that  myriads  of  invisible  spirits  be 
despatched  to  cut  it  away,  as  we  cut  away  a  snow- 
bank, throwing  it  out  block  after  block?  God's 
way  is  to  roll  the  earth  quietly,  irresistibly  around 
on  her  axis  to  the  sun,  and  as  this  is  done  how 
noiselessly  but  how  surely  does  the  darkness  melt 
from  its  top  downward  and  flee  away,  no  one 
knows  how  or  whither.  So  let  minds  overshad- 
owed by  error  around  us,  so  let  the  darkened  na- 
tions be  turned  by  God's  Providence  and  Spirit, 
moved  by  prevailing  prayer,  till  the  beams  of  the 
Sun  of  Righteousness  shall  fall  upon  them  and 
there  will  and  must  flee  before  them  the  gloom  of 
heathenism  and  the  darkness  of  doubt. 


XIX 

SECURITY   AGAINST   NATURAL    AND 
MORAL   EVIL 


SECURITY  AGAINST  NATURAL  AND 
MORAL  EVIL 

The  Agricultural  College  is  an  organized  at- 
tempt to  get  at  the  last  bottom  fact  of  vegetable 
physiology.  The  wisest  farmer  is  he  who  makes 
most  careful  study  of  what  Nature  requires  in 
order  to  successful  husbandry.  Instead  of  quarrel- 
ling with  her  foundations,  he  keeps  in  closest  sub- 
mission to  the  heart  of  his  ground  and  of  all  grow- 
ing things.  So  far  from  regarding  his  work  as 
monotonous  drudgery  and  degrading  bondage,  he 
feels  that  his  is  almost  a  holy  calling,  having  Nat- 
ure herself  as  an  ever-willing  adviser  and  generous 
co-worker  and  friend. 

For  the  civil  engineer's  task  the  unalterable 
foundations  are  laid  in  the  kinds  of  force  with 
which  he  has  to  deal.  Your  quiet,  unworried,  un- 
hasting  builder  is  one  who  acquaints  himself  thor- 
oughly with  these  foundations;  who  aims  to  get 
at  the  last  bottom  fact  of  gravity — pressure,  and 
of  the  resistance  of  all  the  materials  he  employs. 

131 


132  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

Stephenson  and  Roebling  were  never  known  to 
complain  of  the  long  time  it  took  them  to  work  out 
the  many  and  intricate  problems  involved  in  the 
safe  construction  of  the  Britannia  and  Brooklyn 
bridges.  Only  one  deeply  versed  in  such  matters 
can  rightly  estimate  the  patience,  energy,  prudence 
and  forecast  required  for  the  planning  and  carry- 
ing forward  to  successful  completion  of  such  enor- 
mous constructions;  such  as  those  of  the  Mt.  Cenis 
and  Hoosac  tunnels;  or  of  the  Suez  and  Panama 
Canals.  The  capable  and  honest  engineer  has  a 
calm,  unfearing,  unhesitating  confidence  in  the  en- 
during safety  of  his  work. 

Having  carefully  examined  and  implicitly  ac- 
cepted the  foundations  of  his  art,  the  wise  steam- 
fitter  works  accordingly.  He  makes  patient  study 
of  steam  pressure.  He  is  settled  as  to  two  things; 
first,  that  steam  has  a  way  of  acting,  all  its  own; 
and,  second,  that  he  can  count  to  a  certainty  on  its 
acting  always  In  just  that  way.  Over  against  the 
severely  tested  expansive  power  of  steam  he  sets 
the  as  severely  tested  tensile  strength  of  his  plates 
and  rivets. 

While  each  business  has  foundations  of  its  own, 
underneath  all  these  individual  foundations  Nat- 


SECURITY  FROM  NATURAL  AND  MORAL  EVIL      133 

ure,  in  society,  has  laid  the  one  common,  indispen- 
sable foundation  of  business  honesty.  The  most 
self-composed,  most  unhasting  man  of  all  is  the 
man  who  has  gone  down  and  planted  his  business 
on  this  bed-rock  of  absolute  business  integrity. 
"The  foundations  are  laid  in  righteousness.  It  is 
honest  hands  that  are  doing  the  world's  work. 
Honor,  truth  and  good  faith  lie  at  the  bottom  of 
the  whole  commercial  and  social  system.  The  fab- 
ric of  our  civilization  would  fall  at  once,  were  it 
not  so.  Where  one  man  lives  by  fraud,  a  thousand 
live  by  fair  means.  Where  a  lie  sells  one  bill  of 
goods,  the  truth  sells  a  thousand.  Where  one  dol- 
lar is  lost  by  being  honest,  thousands  are  lost  by 
being  dishonest.  Our  minds  are  filled  by  some 
great  fortune  that  has  been  built  up  by  deceit  and 
cunning;  we  forget  that  it  was  possible  only  be- 
cause most  men  are  honest.  It  is  the  honest  dollar 
that  floats  the  counterfeit  for  a  season.  Just  law- 
yers, conscientious  physicians,  upright  mechanics 
and  laborers  are  doing  the  work  that  makes  Amer- 
ica great  and  prosperous  to-day."* 

And  as  of  the  good  we  crave,  so  of  the  evil  we 
would  shun. 

*   President  A.  V.  V.  Raymond. 


134  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

Take  any  case  in  which  natural  evil  is  by  hu- 
man skill  prevented,  alleviated  or  overcome — 
how  is  that  done?  Certainly  not,  by  either  ridicu- 
ling, underestimating  or  ignoring  it,  but  by  look- 
ing it  squarely  and  honestly  in  the  face,  patiently 
investigating  it;  ascertaining,  as  far  as  we  can,  its 
exact  nature,  dimensions  and  cause,  and  then  by 
applying  an  appropriate  and  adequate  remedy. 
No  threatened  physical  harm  do  we  either  seek  or 
expect  to  turn  aside  save  through  means  specifically 
adapted  to  that  particular  end.  When  in  tropical 
seas  "the  silver  finger  of  the  barometer"  heralds 
the  hurricane,  the  prudent  mariner  reefs  his  sails. 
Has  his  ship  sprung  a  leak?  "All  hands  to  the 
pumps,"  is  the  prompt  command.  We  establish 
quarantine  because  only  that  keeps  the  infected 
ship  from  infecting  the  shore.  Years  ago,  the 
Russian  Government,  alive  to  the  malignity  of  the 
"black  pest,"  surrounded  the  infected  districts  by 
cordons  of  troops  who  were  ordered  to  shoot 
down  every  man  who  might  try  to  escape — a  meas- 
ure justifiable,  because  not  more  severe  than  the 
danger  required.  Filth  diseases  are  forestalled  by 
making  the  foul  clean.  In  any  such  threat  or  out- 
break of  evil,  not  only  do  we  seek  a  remedy  suited 


SECURITY  FROM  NATURAL  AND  MORAL  EVIL     135 

to  the  danger,  but  we  thank  and  applaud  those 
who  faithfully  apprise  us  of  the  danger  and  pro- 
vide for  us  a  way  of  escape.  The  miner's  safety- 
lamp  is  quite  as  much  a  credit  to  Sir  Humphry 
Davy's  philanthropy  as  to  his  laboratory  skill. 
Edward  Jenner,  misconceived  and  vilified  for 
years,  after  prosecuting  his  inquiries  under  most 
disheartening  opposition,  came  at  length  to  be 
hailed  as  one  of  the  world's  great  benefactors 
for  having  given  to  it  vaccination.  To  Pasteur  we 
yield  a  like  sincere  homage. 

If,  then,  there  be  those  who  are  prejudiced 
against  the  Bible,  or,  if  not  prejudiced  against  it, 
are  indifferent  to  its  worth  and  claims,  a  truer  feel- 
ing is  likely  to  be  awakened  for  it,  by  considering 
that  it  is  given  to  us  mainly  as  a  kind  and  trust- 
worthy answer  to  the  question,  *'  What  is  a  sure,  a 
complete,  a  heart-satisfying  remedy  for  this  spir- 
itual derangement  which  we  call  sinf  "  Not,  be 
it  remembered,  some  partial  and  insufficient  and  so 
in  the  end  delusive  and  disappointing  deliverance, 
but  a  deliverance  full,  sure  and  abiding.  There 
were  safety-lamps  enough,  so  called,  before 
Davy's.  There  was  the  little  steel  revolving 
against  pieces  of  flint.    There  was  Clanney's  lamp 


136  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

and  Stephenson's.  But  all  these  were  given  up  be- 
cause found  by  trial  to  be  treacherous  and  insecure. 
So,  there  have  been  devices  enough  of  sages,  mor- 
alists and  philosophers  for  restoring  to  holiness, 
happiness  and  heaven  sinful  and  lost  man.  And 
what  if  it  should  appear  that  what  the  world  by 
all  Its  wisdom  has  proved  itself  powerless  to  dis- 
cover, God  has  most  kindly  and  graciously  made 
known  to  us  In  His  revealed  Word?  That  Jesus 
has  been  given  us,  a  perfect  guide  and  deliverer 
where  all  merely  human  guides  and  deliverers  had 
failed? 


XX 


BETTER   THAN    MIRACLE 


BETTER  THAN  MIRACLE 

The  Lystrians  had  worshipped,  time  out  of 
mind,  at  the  shrines  of  Jupiter  and  Mercury;  the 
patron  gods  whose  statues  adorned  either  side  of 
their  city  gate.  They  continue  thus  to  worship 
until  they  hear  a  new  teacher  speak  and  see  him 
cure  by  a  word  a  hfe-long  cripple.  Here,  at  last, 
is  something  better  than  even  the  grandest  and 
most  imposing  of  any  of  their  idols.  Here  Is  a 
great  and  good  thing — not  talked  about  merely 
like  the  exploits  of  Hermes  and  Hercules  as  hav- 
ing been  done  for  mankind  in  some  golden  age 
long  vanished — but  a  great  and  good  thing  done 
here  and  now,  in  the  sight  of  their  own  eyes  and 
within  the  hearing  of  their  own  ears:  "  Stand  up- 
right on  thy  feet,"  commands  the  divine  messen- 
ger— and  he  speaks  the  word,  not  with  the  whis- 
pered uncertainty  of  their  own  muttered  oracles, 
but  with  a  clear,  ringing,  sonorous  voice — the  ro- 
bust expiration  of  a  delegated  soul  in  conscious 

139 


I40 


FROM   TALK   TO   TEXT 


communion  with  heaven — "  prostrate,  helpless, 
suffering  fellow-creature  and  fellow-sinner,  the 
God  whose  I  am  and  whose  you  are,  bids  you  stand 
upright  on  your  feet."  And  the  poor  cripple,  im- 
potent from  his  mother's  womb,  who  had  never 
taken  a  step  in  his  life,  leaps  from  the  ground  and 
walks.  Jupiter!  where  is  he?  For  we  know  not 
how  many  scores  of  years,  he  has  been  looking 
down  from  his  grand  pedestal  on  this  poor  cripple, 
yet  always  with  the  same  cold  stare  of  his  stony 
eyes.  Ever  since  he  was  placed  there  with  ovation 
of  divine  honors  he  has,  too,  held  in  his  right  hand 
the  forged  thunderbolt,  symbol  of  all-working 
power;  yet  never  has  he  vouchsafed  an  electric 
touch  to  those  poor,  lame  feet.  By  his  side,  too, 
stands  Mercury,  the  god  of  that  eloquence  whose 
holiest  office  it  is  to  plead  for  the  wretched  and 
the  helpless;  yet  never  have  his  finely  chiselled  lips 
moved  to  stir  the  pity  of  the  stern  Olympian  king, 
father  of  gods  and  men. 

No  wonder  the  people  are  amazed.  The  crip- 
ple's unbound  ankles  have  rent  the  more  cruel 
superstition  which  has  made  them  spiritual  crip- 
ples from  their  own  birth.  No  wonder,  when  they 
see  what  Paul  has  done,   that  they  too  find   a 


BETTER    THAN  MIRACLE  141 

tongue;  that  they  lift  up  their  voices,  saying  (not 
in  the  polished  Greek  of  the  conventionalism  of 
that  day,  but  in  the  speech  of  Lycaonia;  in  that 
simple  dialect  of  their  nativity  in  which  an  Intent 
soul  always  finds  readiest  and  most  earnest  utter- 
ance) :  "  The  gods  are  come  down  to  us  in  the 
likeness  of  men." 

This  is  one  step  toward  their  spiritual  enlight- 
enment and  enfranchisement;  but  it  is  only  one. 
Even  yet  they  know  no  better  than  to  turn  from 
one  kind  of  idols  to  another;  from  dead  Idols 
to  living  ones;  from  marble  to  men;  for  now  they 
call  Barnabas  Jupiter,  and  Paul  (because  he  is  the 
chief  speaker)  Mercurius.  And  the  priest  of  Ju- 
piter brings  oxen  and  garlands  to  the  gate  and 
would  do  sacrifice  with  the  people;  nor  can  they 
be  restrained  till  the  apostles,  tearing  their  clothes 
and  rushing  in  among  them,  reprove  their  impiety 
— warning  them  that  they  are  clinging  to  things 
which  are  no  true  manifestations  of  God,  while 
shutting  their  eyes  to  the  real  and  abounding 
proofs  spread  everywhere  around  them  of  His 
presence  and  love.  "  Sirs,  why  do  ye  these  things? 
We  also  are  men  with  like  passions  with  you  and 
preach  to  you  that  you  turn  from  these  vanities  to 


142  FROM   TALK  TO   TEXT 

the  living  God  who  made  heaven  and  earth,  the 
sea  and  all  things  that  are  therein;  who,  in  times 
past,  suffered  all  nations  to  walk  in  their  own 
ways;  nevertheless  He  left  not  Himself  without 
witness  in  that  He  did  good,  and  gave  us  rain  from 
heaven  and  fruitful  seasons,  filling  our  hearts  with 
food  and  gladness." 

The  lesson  here  taught  is  this:  That  the  com- 
monest, most  ordinary  blessings  of  our  every-day 
life  are  a  better  witness  of  God's  loving  care  over 
us  than  are  the  uncommon  and  exceptional. 

Reading  the  narrative  attentively  we  cannot 
but  be  struck  with  this,  at  first,  most  unexpected 
feature  of  it;  that  in  what  he  has  further  to  say  to 
the  people  after  the  curing  of  the  cripple,  Paul 
lays  no  stress  at  all  on  the  miracle;  that  he  makes 
not  even  the  slightest  allusion  to  It,  any  more  than 
if  it  had  not  been  wrought;  that  he  dwells  not  at  all 
on  the  supernatural,  but  wholly  on  the  natural; 
not  on  that  which  Is  done  on  the  Instant  and  with- 
out visible  means,  but  on  that  which  Is  done  In 
ways  that  are  entirely  uniform  and  regular;  not 
on  the  occasional  and  startling,  but  on  that  which 
is  of  stated  and  constant  occurrence;  not  on  the 
sudden,  miraculous  curing  of  the  cripple,  but  on 


BETTER    THAN   MIRACLE  143 

the  rain  from  heaven  and  fruitful  seasons  and 
hearts  filled  by  the  Author  of  all  good  with  food 
and  gladness. 

"  What  then,"  it  will  be  asked,  "  is  the  need 
and  what  the  use  of  the  miracle?  " 

Oh,  the  pity  of  it,  but  so  it  is,  that,  without 
knowing  it,  we  get  into  the  way  of  thinking  that 
our  daily  income  of  good — showers,  dews,  sea- 
sons, harvests,  health,  friends,  civil  freedom,  are 
all  matters  of  course ;  no  more  than  we  deserve  and 
have  a  right  to  expect;  whereas  we  need  to  be 
aroused  to  understand  that  none  of  these  blessings 
are  matters  of  course  or  of  chance,  but  that  they 
are  all  gifts  of  God's  great  mercy  for  which  returns 
are  due  to  Him  of  humble  acknowledgment  and 
grateful  service.  For  this,  sadly  enough,  the 
world  has,  from  time  to  time,  needed  miracles. 
What  have  the  miracles  of  the  ages  been  but  sud- 
den blows  to  awaken  men  to  the  reality  of  God's 
personal  existence;  to  the  realization  of  what  He 
has  been  all  the  time  doing  for  us  in  the  quiet  be- 
stowment  of  his  manifold  and  unfailing  benefits? 
The  miracle,  in  a  word,  is  an  extraordinary  act 
done  to  call  our  attention  to  a  long  series  of  ordi- 


144 


FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 


nary  acts — a  special  witness  called  upon  the  stand, 
not  so  much  to  give  new  testimony  as  to  command 
respect  for  the  many  witnesses  who  had  gone  be- 
fore— witnesses  whose  testimony  had  lost  interest 
for  us  simply  by  reason  of  its  monotonous  repeti- 
tion— that  continuity  of  kindness  from  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world  which,  instead  of  scepticism, 
should  inspire  our  love.  God  stops  us  all  for  a  mo- 
ment by  the  miracle,  as  Paul  stopped  the  Lystrians, 
to  show  us  that  the  path  in  which  we  have  supposed 
ourselves  to  have  been  walking  alone  and  unbe- 
friended  is  not  only  the  path  of  His  own  good  and 
wise  ordering,  but  that  He  has  himself  been  walk- 
ing with  us,  and  that  He  has  never  failed  to  mark 
and  to  supply  our  need. 

The  miracle  does  its  best  work  for  us,  then, 
when  it  leads  us  to  thus  apprehend  God  as  a  con- 
stantly loving  and  bountifully  providing  Father. 
If  we  understand  that  already,  we  need  no  mira- 
cle. 


XXI 


ABSENCE,   NOT   DESERTION 


ABSENCE,  NOT  DESERTION 

Absence,  whether  only  seeming  or  real,  is  not 
necessarily  desertion.  Either  may  be  without  the 
other.  There  may  be  desertion  without  absence. 
A  husband  may  desert  a  wife  utterly;  or  a  wife, 
her  husband,  yet  they  may  live  together  In  the 
same  house  and  eat  at  the  same  table.  Desertion 
is  the  withdrawing  and  withholding  of  affection. 
It  lies  not  In  space  but  In  spirit.  It  is  measured 
not  by  furlongs  but  by  forgetfulness.  Its  degrees 
are  degrees  not  of  latitude  or  longitude,  but  of 
lukewarmness.  On  the  other  hand  there  may  be 
absence  without  desertion.  Business  calls  a  man 
to  Calcutta  or  Canton.  Leaving  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren he  puts  half  the  earth's  circumference  be- 
tween himself  and  them.  He  leaves  them,  but  he 
does  not  forsake  them.  As  he  sails  away  he  lays 
along  the  ocean's  bed  a  heart-cable  flashing  back 
assurances  of  unabated  affection — the  "  lengthen- 
ing chain  "  of  Goldsmith's  traveller  who  writes 
back  from  a  far-off  clime: 

147 


148  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

"  My  heart,  untraveled  fondly  turns  to  thee  " 
— the  sentiment  of  one  of  the  noblest  of  our  mis- 
sionaries who  from  under  the  shadow  of  the  Him- 
alayas in  far-away  Upper  Assam,  wrote  to  friends 
at  home :  "  Oceans  and  climes  cannot  separate  us. 
They  can  only  draw  a  veil  between  the  outward 
forms  of  humanity,  but  not  between  souls ;  that  is, 
our  real  selves." 

The  Hebrews  once  made  for  themselves  a  god 
which  they  could  see — the  golden  calf — because 
Moses  who  had  led  them  out  of  their  bondage  was 
staying  away  from  them  longer  than  they  thought 
he  ought  to  stay.  But  where  was  Moses?  He 
was  in  the  top  of  the  mount  whither  God  had 
called  him.  And  what  was  Moses  doing  there? 
He  was  receiving  from  God  a  manual  of  right 
worship;  ordinances  for  the  regulation  of  their 
family  and  social  living;  and,  above  all,  that  great 
ten-commandment  code  which  was  to  be  the  foun- 
dation of  just  laws  for  the  whole  world  and  for  all 
time.  Moses  staid  away  from  the  people  until  his 
work  was  fully  done,  and  no  longer.  He  would 
have  been  unfaithful  to  the  people,  as  well  as  to 
God,  had  he  come  down  a  moment  sooner  than 
he  did. 


ABSENCE,   NOT   DESERTION  149 

How  long  did  Jesus  stay  on  Mt.  Calvary? 
"  Let  Him  come  down  now,"  said  the  mocking 
Scribes,  "  and  we  will  believe."  But  Jesus  had  the 
great  work  of  our  redemption  to  accomplish  and 
He  held  himself  faithfully  to  that  work  until  He 
could  say,  "  It  is  finished." 

How  long  will  He  now  stay  on  that  other  mount 
— the  Mt.  Zion  above?  Until  His  other  great 
work  is  fully  accomplished,  of  interceding  for  His 
people  and  of  upholding  those  whom  He  sends 
forth  to  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature;  un- 
til to  Him  every  knee  shall  bow  and  every  tongue 
confess  that  He  is  Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God,  the 
Father. 


XXII 


GOVERNMENT    OF    THINGS    BY   PURPOSE 


GOVERNMENT  OF  THINGS  BY  PURPOSE 

In  Nature  everything  is  held  by  absolute  di- 
vine purpose.  Each  atom  is  held  to  be  what  it  is 
and  each  force  is  held  to  act  as  it  does.  These 
natural  obligations  or  bonds  underlie  and  guaran- 
tee natural  order.  Nature  is  a  cosmos,  because  it 
is  a  constitution;  things  stand  because  they  stand 
together;  and  they  stand  together  because  they  are 
held  together.  The  banns  were  proclaimed  in  the 
beginning  and  what  God  hath  joined  together  only 
God  can  put  asunder. 

But  while  the  purposes  of  God  in  nature  are  ab- 
solute, they  are  not  arbitrary  but  constitutional 
purposes.  Some  of  the  American  Colonies  were 
known  as  the  royal  provinces,  others  were  charter 
provinces.  The  difference  (and  it  was  immense) 
was  that  in  the  royal  provinces  the  king's  will  was 
arbitrary,  so  that  nothing  could  with  certainty  be 
counted  on.  The  colonists  were  without  guaran- 
tee of  consistent  action  on  the  part  of  the  king, 

153 


154  FROM   TALK    TO    TEXT 

who  was  at  liberty  to  say  one  thing  to-day  and  its 
opposite  to-morrow.  To  the  latter  named  prov- 
inces the  king  had  granted  charters  in  which  he 
had  defined  and  limited  his  own  powers.  He  had 
bound  himself  by  the  charter  and  the  colonists  held 
him  to  what  he  had  himself  written.  Nature  is  a 
constitution.  It  is  God's  unwritten  Magna  Char- 
ta  freely  bestowed.  Under  it  results  are  calcula- 
ble, giving  intelligence  to  endeavor  and  stability 
to  expectation. 

Under  a  natural  constitution  natural  oughts  fol- 
low natural  obligations.  We  know  what  ought  to 
be  when  we  have  discovered  what  it  is  bound  to  be. 
It  is  because  the  sun  and  the  earth  are  bound  togeth- 
er by  gravitation  that  we  can  tell  to  the  fraction  of 
a  second  when  the  earth  ought  to  be  at  her  vernal 
equinox.  Tell  us  how  strongly  potassium  is  allied 
to  oxygen,  and  we  will  tell  what  ought  to  take 
place  when  potassium  touches  water,  and  how  care- 
fully it  must  be  kept  lest  it  be  consumed  by  the  fer- 
vor of  its  own  passion.  Just  when  and  where  cy- 
clones and  earthquakes  ought  to  come,  and  of  what 
pace  and  force,  we  shall  perhaps  know,  one  of  these 
days,  as  surely  as  we  now  know  where  the  trade- 
winds  ought  to  blow.    Till  we  do  know,  however, 


GOVERNMENT  OF   THINGS  BY   PURPOSE      155 

cyclones,  tornadoes  and  earthquakes  may  be  safely 
trusted  to  do  their  exact  and  whole  duty.  When 
we  have  ascertained  what  that  Is  we  shall  have 
what  we  have  not  as  yet,  a  seismic  and  a  cyclonic 
science. 

Only  Infrangible  obligation  as  expression  of  ab- 
solute purpose  makes  any  science  possible,  since 
the  aim  of  all  science  is  to  trace  the  bonds  by  which 
things  are  held,  rather  than  to  make  full  enumera- 
tion of  the  things  which  are  so  held.  Hence  prog- 
ress in  knowledge  is  truly  progressive  only  as  it 
makes  progress  toward  science,  while  science  itself 
Is  an  end  to  progress.  When  the  ligament  or  law  by 
which  isolated  facts  are  bound  and  held  together 
has  been  once  found,  we  are  done.  The  chain  of 
truths  which  constitute  the  laws  of  the  planetary 
system  was  completed  and  completed  forever 
when  Newton  discovered  the  identity  of  gravita- 
tion with  the  force  which  carries  the  heavenly  bod- 
ies in  their  orbits.  That  is  the  end.  We  may  go 
over  the  same  ground,  re-survey  the  roads  now 
that  the  great  engineers  of  the  heavens  have  staked 
them  out;  we  may  apply  the  formulas  and  verify 
the  calculations,  but  we  can  go  no  further.  The 
science  of  astronomy  Is  a  circular  railway,  and,  go 


156  FROM   TALK   TO   TEXT 

forever,  you  go  and  come  by  the  self-same  routes 
and  by  the  self-same  time-tables  which  Kepler  and 
Newton  surveyed  and  recorded.  You  may  add  a 
new  car  to  the  already  made-up  train,  provided 
you  are  fortunate  enough  to  stumble  on  one  in  any 
of  your  telescopic  rambles,  or  better  still,  provided 
that,  like  Adams  and  Le  Verrier,  you  have  com- 
puted where  one  ought  to  be  found  and  so  where 
to  look  for  it.  When  the  deer-stalker  has  once 
found  the  radius  of  the  circle  which  the  hunted 
stag  is  taking  through  the  forest,  he  can  tell  pretty 
accurately  at  what  time  the  stag  will  pass  a  given 
point.  And  so  Le  Verrier,  that  mighty  Nimrod  of 
the  heavens,  having  computed  what  course  his  un- 
seen but  suspected  game  must  be  taking  through 
his  safe  and  secret  far-off  ranges  of  the  sky,  flings 
his  nimble  lasso  at  a  venture  three  hundred  mill- 
ions of  miles  into  those  vast  outer  depths  of  space, 
and  there  his  friend  Galle,  who  was  by  request 
watching  the  throw  with  his  spy-glass  in  Berlin, 
sees  the  flying  fugitive  and  sees  how  barely  he  es- 
capes being  ringed  by  the  falling  noose. 

And  as  the  inorganic  so  the  organic  world  Is  a 
constitution.  Humboldt  can  tell  us  where  the 
different  flora  and  fauna  ought  to  be  found  be- 


GOVERNMENT  OF    THINGS  BY   PURPOSE      157 

cause  wedded  to  their  natural  homes.  From  a 
single  scale  of  a  truant  fish  Agassiz  tells  in  what 
distant  waters  the  fish  ought  to  have  been  taken. 
A  distinguished  botanist  once  said  that  the  high- 
latitude  Sediim  Rhodiola  ought  to  be  found  in  the 
refrigeratory  which  Nature  has  made  for  herself 
in  the  deep,  sunless  gorges  of  the  Nockamixon 
hills.  And  there,  to  his  satisfaction  though  not  to 
his  surprise,  he  found  it.  The  demonstrator  of 
anatomy  fears  no  loss  of  professional  standing  by 
saying  beforehand  just  what  bones,  muscles,  nerves 
and  glands  ought  to  be  found  in  the  subject  before 
him.  The  physiologist  asserts  what  function  each 
organ  of  the  body  ought  to  perform  and  that  hy- 
giene, therefore,  is  a  science  and  pharmacy  an  art. 
The  physician  tells  his  patient  who  will  not  eat  be- 
cause he  has  no  appetite,  that  If  he  has  no  appetite 
he  ought  to  have  one  and  that  something  is  wrong. 
It  is  to  be  said  of  every  man  that  he  ought  to  have 
all  the  appetites  and  all  the  sensations  of  which  the 
body  is  the  appointed  and  proper  seat.  He  is 
bound  to  see,  hear,  smell,  taste  and  feel  things  to 
be  what  they  are;  to  see  blue  to  be  blue,  to  taste 
sugar  to  be  sweet,  to  feel  velvet  to  be  soft. 

Going  higher  to  the  intellect,  we  find  that  the 


158  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

intellect,  too,  is  held.  The  stern  Vulcan  of  logic 
binds  and  leads  captive  with  unbreakable  chains. 
We  are  compelled  to  believe  that  to  be  true  which 
is  proven  to  be  true,  and  there  are  kinds  of  proof 
which  we  are  forced  to  accept  as  valid.  With  jus- 
tifiable ferocity  the  logician  says  to  however  great 
and  however  defiant  an  audience,  "  I  am  going  to 
hold  every  man  of  you  to  admit  the  truth  of  my 
proposition."  No  mind  of  all  the  generations 
since  Pythagoras  but  is  held  irresistibly  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  hypothenuse  squared  equals  the 
sum  of  the  squared  sides. 

And  as  of  the  intellect  and  the  appetites,  so  of 
the  desires.  Every  man  is  under  natural  obliga- 
tion to  desire  knowledge,  esteem,  property  and 
power.  Every  man  ought  to  desire  these  in  much 
the  same  way  that  a  vine  ought  to  send  its  roots 
out  into  the  soil  and  its  limbs  and  leaves  out  into 
the  air  in  quest  of  that  nutriment  through  which 
the  vine  is  bound  to  cluster  in  due  time  its  branches 
with  fruit. 

The  sensibilities  are  constituted.  In  virtue  of 
this  constitution  we  are  held  to  honor  our  parents 
and  to  care  for  our  children,  to  pity  the  distressed, 
to  be  thankful  to  benefactors,   to  see  beauty  in 


GOVERNMENT  OF   THINGS  BY   PURPOSE      15Q 

what  is  beautiful,  to  admire  what  is  admirable,  to 
adore  what  is  adorable,  to  worship  what  is  wor- 
shipful. It  is  as  much  a  part  of  our  primeval  con- 
stitution to  love  God  and  our  neighbor  as  it  is  to 
love  parent  and  child,  to  see  the  force  of  proof,  to 
see  beauty  in  a  rose  or  a  rainbow,  to  see  a  red  tar- 
get to  be  red,  to  be  charmed  with  melody.  The 
profoundest  of  philosophers  and  truest  of  teach- 
ers says  even  more ;  for  it  is  He  who  affirms  that  it 
is  as  natural  for  the  soul  to  hunger  for  God  as  it 
is  for  the  body  to  hunger  for  bread. 

Thus  far  (that  is,  till  we  reach  moral  choice) 
the  world  appears  to  be  as  Boyle  has  called  it,  "  a 
great  and  admirable  automaton,"  or,  as  I  would 
rather  call  it,  a  great  and  admirable  theomaton; 
a  system  all  whose  members  are  held  together  and 
all  whose  movements  are  directed  and  determined 
by  correspondencies  of  parts  and  powers  wisely 
and  immovably  established  by  the  Creator. 

God's  dominion  over  Nature,  then,  is  by  abso- 
lute, unquestioned  purpose.  What  the  governing 
obligations  should  be  it  was  for  Him  and  Him 
alone  to  determine:  "  There  is  but  one  Law-Giv- 
er." Properties  and  powers,  provisions  and  adap- 
tations are  not  made  to  depend  on  our  consent; 


l6o  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

they  come  to  us  as  fixed  purposes  claiming  our  Im- 
plicit and  full  assent.  In  nature  obligation  is  the 
sole  element;  so  that  what  ought  to  be  will  be, 
and  what  ought  to  go  will  go,  and  will  go  as  it 
ought.  Here,  "  whatever  is  is  right."  Conse- 
quent is  married  to  antecedent.  Results  are  cal- 
culable. Occurrence  becomes  recurrence.  That 
which  has  been  is,  and  that  which  is  is  that  which 
shall  be. 

This  gives  to  science  its  realms  and  its  limita- 
tions. Science  discovers;  it  cannot  originate.  A 
scientist  may  suspect.  That  is  legitimate  enough, 
and  is  often  very  useful.  But  the  man  who,  for 
the  sake  of  being  talked  about  as  an  "  advanced 
thinker,"  is  too  quick  both  to  suspect  and  to  pro- 
claim as  a  discovery  what  is  as  yet  only  a  suspicion, 
is  a  suspicious  and  in  proportion  to  his  influence  a 
mischievous  character.  To  trumpet  speculation 
for  fact,  whether  in  science  or  theology,  in  advance 
of  indubitable  proof,  is  as  if  Columbus,  after  hav- 
ing sailed  from  Palos  in  search  of  a  new  world, 
had  gone  no  farther  than  to  the  Canaries,  had 
there  drawn  on  his  invention  for  a  map  of  a  new 
continent,  had  called  the  continent  after  his  own 
name  and  had  then  claimed  the  glory  of  having 


GOVERNMENT  OF  THINGS  BY  PURPOSE      i6i 

discovered  something.  The  only  thing  he  would 
have  discovered  would  have  been  his  own  map, 
and  that  would  not  have  been  a  discovery  but  a 
fraudulent,  though  possibly  an  ingenious  Inven- 
tion— a  paper  continent  not  worth  the  paper  on 
which  it  would  have  been  engrossed. 

And  as  science  begins,  so  it  ends  with  discov- 
ery. When  the  discoverer  has  discovered,  discov- 
ery ceases.  Columbus  could  discover  America  but 
once.  So  with  invention,  which  is  but  applied  dis- 
covery, and  so  with  art,  which  is  but  applied  In- 
vention. The  best  Inventor,  like  the  best  discov- 
erer, is  the  least  original.  He  Invents  best  who 
listens  best.  Sitting  by  his  quiet  hearth-fire  James 
Watt  hears  again  what  he  and  thousands  of  oth- 
ers have  heard  a  thousand  times  before,  but  with 
inattentive  and  therefore  with  Indifferent  ears. 
Watt  now  for  the  first  time  gives  heed,  and  giving 
heed  he  begins  to  question  with  himself  whether 
this  low  musical  sound  may  not  have  In  It  a  divine 
message  of  good.  How  eagerly  does  he  con  the 
phrases  of  this  message  and  pry  into  their  hidden 
benevolence  of  divine  intent,  till  at  length  in  the 
steam-engine  he  is  able  to  make  to  Industry  "  the 
most  magnificent  gift  it  has  ever  received."    Our 


1 62  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

wisdom  lies,  not  in  attempting  to  alter  the  terms 
of  the  message,  but  in  candidly  interpreting  the 
message  and  in  conforming  to  it  our  plans  and  our 
endeavors.  "  God  is  not  mocked."  Steam  will 
work  for  us,  but  in  God's  appointed  way  only. 
The  valves  wrong,  the  vapory  giant  will  fume  and 
fret  in  his  iron  harness,  but  he  will  not  draw. 
The  valves  right  and  he  will.  To  him  who  asks 
how  he  may  inherit  the  present  life  nature  answers, 
"  What  Is  written  in  the  law?  how  readest  thou?  " 
"  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear." 

"  IF  YE  KNOW  THESE  THINGS,   HAPPY  ARE  YE 
WHO  DO  THEM." 


XXIII 

GOVERNMENT  OF  PERSONS  BY  PROPOSAL 


GOVERNMENT  OF  PERSONS  BY  PROPOSAL 

Thus  far  we  have  found  no  choice  and  no  free- 
dom. Gravitation  has  no  choice  but  to  pull  as  it 
does,  nor  cohesion  but  to  stick  fast  as  it  does,  nor 
chemical  affinity  but  to  tie  fast  as  It  does  by  inva- 
riable formulas.  Plants  have  no  choice.  The  or- 
chid Is  pre-determlned  to  be  an  orchid  and  the  oak 
an  oak.  Nor  have  brutes  choice.  They  do  not  de- 
vote themselves  to  courses  of  their  own  choosing, 
but  are  held  to  what  they  do  by  their  respective 
instincts.  The  appetites  and  the  desires  in  man 
have  no  choice  but  to  impel  as  they  do.  The  intel- 
lect has  no  choice  but  to  conclude  as  it  does.  Nor 
primarily  is  it  because  man  chooses  so  to  do  that 
he  loves  his  offspring,  his  neighbor,  or  his  God. 
And  knowing  the  wise  construction  out  of  which 
all  these  results  flow,  we  know  what  ought  to  fol- 
low and  what,  therefore,  it  would  be  right  to  ex- 
pect. We  expect  gold  to  resist  oxidation  and  we 
expect  iron  to  rust.      We  expect  food  to  nourish 

165 


1 66  FROM   TALK   TO   TEXT 

and  prussic  acid  to  kill.  Rarey  can  tame  and  train 
any  horse.  The  farmer  and  the  florist  call  and 
crops  and  flowers  come.  Doll-makers  count  on 
their  trade  being  good  to  the  end  of  time.  Mana- 
gers of  charity-boards  assume  financial  responsi- 
bilities on  the  strength  of  expected  incomes;  they 
know  the  force  of  sympathetic  appeal.  There  is 
a  philosophy  of  rhetoric  and  an  art  of  persuasion. 
The  proverbs  of  Solomon  are  as  true  and  as  ser- 
viceable now  as  they  were  three  thousand  years 
ago.  There  is  a  human  nature  and  it  may  be  stud- 
ied and  known. 

It  is  a  part  of  this  nature  that  the  relative  su- 
periority of  its  parts,  powers  and  products  is  self- 
indicated.  So  that  let  a  man  yield  himself  to  the 
incitement  of  these  powers  according  to  their  rela- 
tive and  naturally  indicated  rank  and  worth,  let 
him  allow  nature  to  have  its  own  way  with  him, 
and  he  will  be  convinced  by  all  that  is  valid  in 
proof,  will  feel  the  beauty  of  all  that  is  beautiful, 
will  be  awed  by  all  that  is  sublime,  will  be  sad- 
dened by  all  that  is  pitiful,  will  love  all  that  is 
lovely.  He  will  weep  when  he  ought  to  weep  and 
will  laugh  when  he  ought  to  laugh,  will  mourn 
when  he  ought  to  mourn  and  dance  when  he  ought 


GOVERNMENT  OF   PERSONS  BY   PROPOSAL      167 

to  dance,  will  love  when  he  ought  to  love  and  hate 
when  he  ought  to  hate;  he  will  live  as  long  as  he 
ought  to  live  and  will  die  when  and  as  he  ought  to 
die. 

But  when  we  say,  "  If  a  man  will  let  nature 
have  its  course,"  it  is  implied  that  he  may,  if  he 
will,  decline  to  do  that.  And  this  reveals  to  us 
another  part  of  our  constitution  with  an  obligation 
and  an  ought  of  a  very  different  kind.  Let  there 
be  nature  only  and  man  would  be  an  automaton; 
an  automaton  of  a  very  noble  sort,  but  yet  an  au- 
tomaton. Wherever  there  is  calculable  product 
there  must  be  somewhat  of  a  mechanical  or  com- 
pelling element  in  the  producing  power;  some- 
thing of  routine  and  monotony.  And  so  while  the 
result  may  be  good,  it  is  yet  a  lower  form  of  good. 
It  is  natural  and  not  moral  good.  There  is  no 
morality  and  no  virtue  in  any  machine,  however 
perfect  its  construction  and  however  noble  or  beau- 
tiful the  product.  Morality  implies  moral  obli- 
gation, and  moral  obligation  necessitates  moral 
choice,  and  choice  in  its  very  nature  is  free.  And 
this  is  an  entirely  different  thing  from  natural  ob- 
ligation; or  rather,  it  is  another  form  of  natural 


l68  PROM   TALK  TO   TEXT 

obligation  or  holding  having  a  moral  element  in 
it;  an  obligation,  that  is,  the  feeling  of  which 
arises  naturally  in  us;  which  because  natural  we 
must  feel;  but  yet  an  obligation  which  we  may  re- 
spect or  disregard,  a  bond  which  we  may  let  our- 
selves be  held  by  or  may  break  away  from,  as  we 
shall  choose.  All  the  merely  natural  obligations, 
those  arising  from  the  constitution,  are  before  us; 
as  many  of  them  at  least  as  we  have  in  any  way 
come  to  understand,  and  it  is  then  for  each  man 
to  say  for  himself  whether  or  not  he  will  heed 
these  arrangements  of  the  Great  Arranger,  these 
provisions  of  the  Great  Provider,  these  ordinations 
of  the  Great  Ordainer. 

Now  the  peculiarity  and  grand  distinction  of 
moral  government  is,  that  such  government  is  not 
by  absolute  purpose  but  by  contingent  proposal. 
It  is  the  high  dignity  of  man  that  God  makes  pro- 
posals to  him,  giving  to  him  the  liberty  either  of 
accepting,  adopting  and  carrying  out  freely  what 
God  proposes,  or  of  setting  these  proposals  at 
naught;  the  choice  whether  he  will  respect  and 
keep  the  divine  order,  or,  disregarding  it,  make 
disorder  in  its  place. 


GOVERNMENT  OF  PERSONS  BY  PROPOSAL     169 

**  And  binding  nature  fast  in  fate. 
Left  free  the  human  will." 


But  is  there  not  a  contradiction  here?  To  say 
that  a  man  is  under  obligation,  is  bound,  is  held, 
and  yet  is  free?  Is  that  an  honest,  a  genuine  pro- 
posal which  a  man  is  bound  beforehand  to  accept? 
Is  it  not  a  contradiction,  is  it  not  a  sarcasm  and  a 
mockery,  to  say  to  any  man  with  regard  to  any 
proposed  action,  "  Voluntary  on  your  part,  but 
compulsory  on  mine?  " 

An  apparent  contradiction  certainly,  but  not  a 
real  one.  For  that  is  the  only  kind  of  obligation, 
holding  or  government  that  is  possible  with  be- 
ings having  freedom  of  choice.  The  fulfilment  of 
God's  precepts  is  necessarily  contingent  on  the 
choice  of  those  to  whom  the  precepts  are  given. 
Has  God,  then,  put  Himself  in  a  position  to  be 
thwarted  and  mocked?  No,  because  it  is  a  pro- 
posal with  alternatives  in  case  of  acceptance  or  re- 
jection. To  compel  acceptance,  however,  by  de- 
priving man  of  the  power  of  refusal  would  be  to 
demoralize,  or  rather  to  wwmpralize  him;  to  re- 
duce him  not  to  an  immoral  but  to  an  unmoral  be- 
ing.    But  so  sacredly  does  God  hold  this  divine 


lyo  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

freedom  that  rather  than  destroy  it  He  will  see  a 
man  or  even  an  angel  become  a  devil.  It  was  car- 
rying self-abnegation  quite  too  far  when  a  charm- 
ing Christian  lady  once  said  to  me,  "  I  am  per- 
fectly willing  to  be  a  machine  if  God  will  turn  the 
crank!  "  so  heartily  did  she  rejoice  in  the  divine 
sovereignty.  But  God  does  not  make  his  moral 
world  go  by  means  of  any  crank.  No  human  law- 
giver ever  took  upon  him  to  say,  "  No  theft,  rob- 
bery, incendiarism  or  murder  shall  ever  be  com- 
mitted by  any  man  under  this  government."  Nor 
is  it  at  all  in  that  sense  that  God  says,  "  Thou 
shalt,"  and  "Thou  shalt  not."  Were  that  its 
meaning  the  Decalogue  would  be  but  the  declara- 
tion of  an  absolute  purpose;  a  purpose,  however, 
which  could  be  carried  out  only  by  destruction  of 
moral  freedom.  Yet  God  is  not  mocked.  A  man 
is  mocked  when  he  undertakes  what  he  cannot  car- 
ry out.  But  God  does  carry  out  all  that  he  under- 
takes to  carry  out.  What  God  says  is  not,  *'  You 
shall  never  steal;  "  but,  "  If  you  steal  I  shall  hold 
you  to  account."  All  below  man  is  held;  only 
man  is  held  to  account.  The  moon  is  held  to  re- 
volve and  the  sparrow  to  build  its  nest  and  to  rear 
its  young.   But  should  they  fail,  neither  moon  nor 


GOVERNMENT   OF   PERSONS   BY   PROPOSAL      171 

sparrow  could  be  held  to  account.  Only  one  mor- 
ally free  can  be  morally  held.  Only  the  guilty 
can  be  held  to  answer,  and  only  the  free  can  be 
guilty.  Rewarding  right-choosing  and  holding 
wrong-choosing  to  account  are  the  two  great  prin- 
ciples and  methods  of  all  moral  government. 

But  what  does  holding  to  answer,  or  holding 
to  account,  mean?  It  means  two  things;  that  is, 
there  is  a  double  holding.  The  man  who  violates 
any  part  of  his  constitution  is  held  to  account,  first 
of  all  by  the  constitution  itself.  A  man  abuses  his 
body.  He  can  do  that.  But  his  abused  body 
holds  him  to  answer  for  the  abuse.  Abuses  of  the 
body  are  fearful  debts  which  the  body  is  faithful 
to  collect;  and  neuralgia  and  gout,  dyspepsia  and 
insomnia,  delirium  and  paralysis  are  a  few  of  its 
thousand  agents  to  present  the  bills.  A  man 
abuses  his  intellect;  but  his  intellect  holds  him  to 
answer  by  impaired  attention,  corrupt  association 
of  ideas,  mental  one-sidedness  or  imbecility. 
Searing  or  perverting  of  the  affections  follows 
abuse  of  the  affections.  These  evil  things  follow 
even  though  the  man  may  have  intended  no  wrong. 
Physically  a  man  would  be  a  daily  drunkard  were 
alcohol  put  in  his  food  unwittingly  to  himself,  as 


1^2  FROM   TALK   TO   TEXT 

surely  as  if  he  were  to  drink  the  poison  at  the  bar 
of  the  vilest  saloon. 

And  so  if  a  man  violates  moral  obligation, 
(which  he  does  when  he  does  voluntarily  that 
which  he  either  knows  or  believes  to  be  wrong), 
he  is  held  to  answer  for  that  by  the  moral  penal- 
ties of  self-rebuke,  shame  and  remorse.  These 
come  of  themselves  and  there  Is  no  escape.  The 
"  conscienceless  "  criminal,  as  he  is  called,  has  a 
conscience  still  and  some  day  that  conscience  will 
do  its  work.  "  How  different,"  moaned  the  mur- 
derer of  Parkman  when  after  he  had  been  convict- 
ed and  sentenced  he  was  being  led  away  to  his  cell, 
"  How  different  a  man's  sin  looks  to  him  after  it 
has  been  committed  from  what  it  did  before." 
The  fuse  may  be  a  long  one  and  It  may  burn  slow- 
ly, but  In  due  time  the  fatal  spark  will  reach  the 
magazine  where  conscience  has  stored  her  mate- 
rials of  torment,  and  the  ruin  and  the  wreck  will 
come.  The  "  mills  of  the  gods,"  which  are  said  to 
"  grind  so  slow  and  so  exceedingly  small,"  do  not 
grind  at  all  save  as  some  responsible  gate-keeper 
opens  the  gates  in  wantonness  and  lets  the  water 
on  the  relentless  wheels. 

But  there  is  another  holding.    The  law-breaker 


GOVERNMENT  OF  PERSONS  BY   PROPOSAL     173 

is  held  to  account  by  the  law-giver  directly  and  in 
person ;  a  person  holding  a  person  to  answer  for  a 
personal  offence.  The  murderer  may  suffer  the 
pangs  of  remorse  in  what  he  imagines  is  his  safe 
hiding-place.  But  it  is  a  different  pang  he  feels 
when  the  detective  comes  suddenly  and  lays  a 
strong  hand  on  him  and  says,  "  Come  with  me; 
you  are  my  prisoner."  And  when  the  indictment 
is  drawn  and  a  true  bill  is  found  and  the  offender 
is  told  that  he  is  held  to  answer  before  the  court, 
and  then  when  sentence  has  been  passed  and  he  is 
taken  to  answer  by  loss  of  his  freedom  behind  pris- 
on-bars or  on  the  scaffold  with  his  life — then  to 
the  penalty  of  remorse  is  added  punishment  by  the 
judge.  And  then  it  is  that  the  shame  and  the  re- 
morse are  intensified  by  the  open  rebuke  of  de- 
served seclusion  from  companionship  with  the 
good.  This  exclusion  is  that  "  outer  darkness  " 
which  makes  the  remorse  and  the  shame  break  out 
in  "  weeping  and  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth." 
We  stand  not  in  the  presence  of  our  own  "  spirit- 
ual worthiness"  only;  we  stand  also  in  the  pres- 
ence of  our  Judge. 

Thus  law  is  authority  as  well  as  guide.     It  com- 
mands as  well  as  informs.    "  This  is  the  way  "  is 


174  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

the  information;  the  direction,  "  Walk  ye  in  it  "  is 
the  command.  This  makes  the  proposal  to  be  also 
a  statute.  Such  has  God  made  it  by  linking  com- 
fort to  obedience  and  torment  to  disobedience. 
And  what  He  has  joined  together  neither  nature 
nor  man  can  by  any  means  put  asunder. 


XXIV 
BONDAGE   BY   LAW 


BONDAGE  BY  LAW 

Here  is  a  serious  exigency,  and  in  order  fully 
to  meet  it  two  things  are  clearly  requisite.  We 
need,  first,  to  have  our  sentence  remitted  so  that 
we  be  no  longer  held  to  answer  personally  for  our 
sin.  How  can  that  be?  Not  by  an  act  of  simple 
clemency.  Not  by  surrender  of  righteousness 
through  some  strenuously  attempted  but  impossi- 
ble catalysis  of  statute  and  judgment.  Not  by 
sacrilegious  mutilation  of  the  statute;  cutting  it 
in  twain  and  keeping  the  informing  "  This  is  the 
way,"  and  casting  aside  the  authoritative  "  Walk 
ye  in  it."  "  To  say  and  straight  unsay  "  would 
bring  both  law  and  law-giver  into  deserved  con- 
tempt. When  the  Law-Giver  says,  "  Thou  shalt 
surely  die,"  it  can  be  no  other  than  an  enemy, 
though  professing  to  be  a  better  friend,  who  will 
say,  "  Thou  shalt  not  surely  die."  No  earthly 
magistrate  dare  say  that.  Human  law  makes  no 
-provision  for  pardon  as  such.    "  If  it  commute  the 

177 


178  FROM   TALK   TO    TEXT 

sentence  or  grant  a  respite,  it  is  only  because  the 
penalty  has  been  found  to  be  too  severe  under  the 
circumstances,  so  that  so-called  mercy  is  not  mercy 
but  is  only  equity  correcting  the  inequalities  of 
law."  Let  juries  refuse  to  convict,  judges  to  sen- 
tence or  magistrates  to  punish  and  they  would 
"  speed  their  own  extinction  and  dissolve  the  bonds 
of  society."  Simply  to  forgive  may  evidence  good- 
ness. Only  profoundest  wisdom  is  equal  to  the 
task  of  upholding  righteousness  while  acquitting 
the  guilty.  And  the  Gospel  is  wisdom.  It  is  the 
"  wisdom  of  God  "  no  less  than  the  love  and  mer- 
cy of  God.  And  the  wisdom  is  this,  that  while  the 
Gospel  is  a  release  from  the  law,  it  is  a  release 
which  honors  the  law  by  more  firmly  establishing 
it. 

This  principle  of  honoring  the  law  by  release 
from  the  consequences  of  its  violation  is  well  rep- 
resented in  cases  of  physical  deliverance.  A  man 
is  sent  to  sea  in  a  stanch,  sea-worthy  vessel.  But 
what  is  that  which  makes  any  vessel  worthy  of  the 
sea?  It  is  the  regard  had  in  its  construction  to  all 
the  known  laws  of  hydro-  and  of  anemo-dynamics. 
Rightly  managed  the  ship  makes  a  sure  and  safe 


BONDAGE   BY   LAW  179 

voyage.  But  the  voyager  carelessly  runs  his  ship 
on  a  rock  or  wantonly  scuttles  her  in  mid-ocean. 
He  thus  challenges  the  sea  to  overwhelm  him  with 
his  whelmed  vessel.  He  can  be  rescued  only  by  a 
life-boat  sent  from  either  the  shore  or  from  anoth- 
er ship.  But  what  is  a  life-boat?  A  life-boat  is  a 
boat  that  is  made  as  a  ship  is  made,  but  with  this 
difference,  that  the  life-boat  is  made  with  a  far 
stricter  regard  to  the  laws  which  govern  the  mo- 
tion and  action  of  water  and  of  wind.  And  when 
(supposing  him  to  accept  the  offered  deliverance) 
the  sinking  suicide  steps  into  the  life-boat,  by 
that  simple  act  of  trust  he  pays  a  new  and  pro- 
founder  homage  to  that  very  law  of  the  elements, 
by  disregard  of  which  he  had  invited  his  destruc- 
tion. 

And  the  Gospel  is  our  life-boat.  When  Christ 
took  our  place.  He  took  it  by  saying,  "  I  will  an- 
swer for  you  to  the  law."  That  answer  He  made. 
It  was  a  straightforward,  manly,  honest  answer. 
It  was  no  evasive  response,  no  eloquent  but  false 
pleading,  no  twisting  or  hiding  of  the  evidence 
against  us,  no  ingenious,  self-sparing  subterfuge. 
If  there  is  any  business  which  Christ  utterly  ab- 
hors, I  think  it  must  be  that  of  the  dishonest  crim- 


l8o  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

inal  lawyer  who,  by  purposely  shielding  crime,  en- 
courages and  emboldens  it  to  make  a  laughing- 
stock of  justice.  Christ  is  indeed  our  "  advocate," 
but  He  is  no  such  advocate  as  that.  Having  as- 
sumed the  peril  of  our  indictment  He  sought 
neither  to  quash  the  indictment  nor  to  have  it  soft- 
ened down  by  so  much  as  one  iota.  He  took  on 
Him  all  our  sin.  And  having  taken  it,  when  the 
question  came  whether  He  would  go  forward  and 
make  true  answer  by  bearing  our  curse,  no  wonder 
that,  understanding  perfectly  all  the  elements  of 
that  fearful  account,  no  wonder  that  He  was  for 
a  time  in  an  agony  of  spirit.  No  wonder  that  He 
prayed,  and  that  He  prayed  again,  and  yet  again, 
"  Father,  let  this  cup  pass  from  Me."  No  won- 
der that,  added  to  His  own,  He  needed  an  angel's 
strength  to  enable  Him  to  say,  "  Nevertheless  not 
My  will  but  Thine  be  done." 

And  this  is  the  Gospel,  that  though  the  guilty 
are  acquitted  and  released,  their  acceptance  of  the 
substitution  and  sacrifice  of  Jesus,  so  far  from 
making  the  law  an  idle  word,  "  establishes  the 
law  "  by  the  new  and  most  powerful  of  all  conceiv- 
able sanctions,  the  expiatory  death  of  the  Son  of 
God. 


XXV 

RELEASE   BY   FAITH 


RELEASE  BY  FAITH 

But  along  with  the  discharge  of  our  account 
through  the  answering  death  of  Christ,  there 
comes  through  His  transforming  Spirit  the  no  less 
needed  deliverance  from  the  torment  of  an  es- 
tranged and  hostile  will.  For  though  the  trust- 
ing offender  is  no  longer  held  to  punishment,  he  is 
still  held  to  the  obedience  of  love.  Never  can 
any  man  cease  to  owe  supreme  love  to  God  and 
equal  love  to  his  neighbor.  But  "  owe "  and 
*'  own,"  it  is  well  to  remember,  are  correlative 
words  from  the  same  root  and  originally  of  the 
same  meaning.  And  there  is  manhood  in  the  ety- 
mology. No  man  should  owe  his  neighbor  more 
than  he  owns,  while  every  man  owes  all  that  he 
owns  to  God. 

And  it  is  pleasant  to  owe  provided  we  can  pay. 
But  it  is  slavery,  it  is  torture,  to  owe  if  we  cannot 
pay;  to  lie  under  any  just  obligation  which  we  can- 
not meet.    Owe  more  money  than  you  can  pay,  and 

183 


l84  FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 

you  are  no  longer  a  free  man.  You  are  bound  by 
a  miserable  chain  and  your  creditor  grasps  the 
other  end  of  it.  And  that  is  a  chain  which  no  bank- 
rupt law  can  ever  break.  You  may  abolish  the 
debtor's  prison,  you  cannot  dissolve  the  debtor's 
chain. 

A  grateful  heart  finds  Its  debt  of  gratitude  only 
a  pleasure,  for  a  grateful  heart  means  a  solvent, 
a  paying  heart.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  (I  think  it 
was)  once  spoke  sorrowfully  to  Goldsmith  of  the 
recent  death  of  a  man  by  whom  Reynolds  was  once 
greatly  befriended.  "  Be  content,"  replied  Gold- 
smith, "  you  will  no  longer  be  under  the  painful 
necessity  of  being  grateful  to  him !  "  Painful  ne- 
cessity I  Surely  something  is  miserably  out  of  joint 
when  a  man  is  bound  to  do,  and  ought  to  do,  and 
is  therefore  properly  expected  to  do,  what  he  finds 
that  it  is  not  in  his  heart  to  do.  Hearts  are  not 
made  for  fetters.  "  Owe  no  man  anything  "  is  an 
inspired  man's  manly  motto.  His  "  except  to  love 
one  another  "  is  no  real  exception  to  a  rightly  lov- 
ing man.  We  may  be  held  to  do  or  held  not  to  do, 
but  we  shall  not  feel  that  we  are  held  provided  we 
are  free  in  doing  or  in  abstaining.  Given  a  per- 
fectly true  and  straight  track  and  a  perfect  wheel, 


RELEASE  BY  FAITH  185 

and  without  a  flange  the  wheel  would  keep  the  rail. 
Love  going  freely  and  without  external  restraint 
is  a  flangeless  wheel.  It  is  the  errant  wheel  only 
that  grates  and  jars  and  binds.  And  if  that  be  a 
false  and  unnatural  condition  where  there  is  a  just 
claim  for  love,  but  no  love,  most  tormenting  and 
pitiable  of  all  must  it  be  where  there  is  no  love  and 
a  just  claim  for  the  strongest — marriage  without 
marriage-love.  Our  divorce  leagues  and  litera- 
ture, our  codes  and  our  courts,  our  magazines  and 
the  daily  papers  witness  to  what  desperate  means 
estranged  wives  and  husbands  will  resort  to  escape, 
if  possible,  this  bitterest,  this  most  galling  misery. 
What  freedom,  could  the  chain  be  honorably 
broken !  What  happiness  if  a  perversely  alienated 
wife  be  reconciled  to  her  blameless  and  injured 
husband  and  there  be  a  re-marriage  with  penitent 
and  abiding  love ! 

And  this  is  no  other  than  a  divinely-drawn  pic- 
ture of  the  wretched  servitude  of  sin  and  of  the 
joyous  freedom  of  Christian  trust — the  true  "  free- 
dom of  faith."  *  Between  the  unrenewed  soul  and 
the  law  to  which  by  God's  ordinance  it  is  sacredly 
wedded  there  is  no   congeniality,   no  sympathy. 

*Rom.  7:  1-4. 


1 86  FROM    TALK   TO    TEXT 

The  estranged  mind  is  utterly  averse  to  the  union, 
and  is  not,  will  not  be,  cannot  be  reconciled  to  it. 
Obedience,  if  rendered  at  all,  is  yielded  only 
through  fear  and  is  but  the  obedience  of  a  slave. 

Such  unwilling  subjection  is  sufficiently  dread- 
ful even  in  the  family  or  in  the  state,  but  is  there 
made  endurable  by  the  certainty  that  it  will  some 
time  be  at  an  end.  The  hated  husband  and  the 
hated  monarch  must  die,  or  at  the  worst,  the  en- 
slaved will  themselves  soon  find  deliverance  in 
the  grave.  But  for  a  mind  embittered  against  the 
law  there  is  not  even  that  consolation.  The  law 
has  dominion  over  it  as  long  as  it  lives,  and  it  is 
immortal.  The  law  goes  with  it  beyond  the  grave, 
and  from  the  law's  just  claim  it  can  never  escape. 
This  it  was  which  made  our  state  so  dark  and  hope- 
less; this  which  moved  the  pity  of  Jesus  to  seek 
our  rescue.  By  the  willing  answer  which  for 
our  causeless  enmity  He  made  upon  the  cross 
Christ  obtained  for  us  an  honorable  and  just  re- 
lease from  the  law  which  we  were  bound  to  obey 
but  could  not  love.  The  change  which  comes  to 
him  who  through  Christ  applies  for  and  obtains 
this  release  is  great  and  joyous.  His  heart  is  now 
free.     If  he  serve  now  it  will  be  from  no  feeling 


RELEASE  BY  FAITH  187 

of  compulsion  but  only  from  choice.  All  legal  re- 
straint having  been  removed  from  his  affections, 
he  is  at  full  liberty  to  bestow  them  on  whatever 
new  object  he  will.  Yet  who  in. all  the  wide  uni- 
verse so  worthy  to  receive  them  as  He  w'ho  with 
His  own  blood  bought  for  him  this  great  deliver- 
ance, this  priceless  freedom  ?  To  Jesus,  therefore, 
he  surrenders  himself  with  all  the  devotion  of  a 
new  and  loving  bride,  to  serve  no  longer  as  before 
"  in  the  oldness  of  the  letter,"  but  in  the  newness 
and  freshness  of  a  willing  spirit. 

It  is  here  and  here  only  that  we  have  solved  for 
us  that  great  problem  which  through  the  ages  had 
baffled  the  best  human  wisdom — the  liberation  of 
the  affections  from  the  overmastering  dread  of 
punitive  disaster  for  inexcusable  transgression. 
There  have  been  self-demanded  and  self-imposed 
sacrifices  to  this  end  without  limit.  But  neither 
heathen  or  Jew  has  ever  been  quite  able  to  cer- 
tify himself  of  the  answering  completeness  of  even 
his  most  lavish  surrenders.  The  costliest  sacri- 
fices have  come  back  only  to  the  confusion  of  the 
offerer.  The  priceless  ring  which  Polycrates  had 
cast  into  the  sea  as  an  expiation  for  his  crimes  the 
tyrant,  to  his  dismay,  finds  in  the  fish  which  the 


1 88  FROM    TALK   TO   TEXT 

cook  sets  before  him  at  his  next  banquet.  Not  for 
an  instant  does  the  stress  of  any  "  self-invoked  ad- 
versity "  stay  the  step  of  the  Nemesis  of  judg- 
ment. 

Neither  have  forms  sufficed.  The  "  what-shall- 
I-do-more  "  Pharisee  never  knows  when  he  has 
done  enough.  The  "  what-lack-I-yet  "  young  ruler 
goes  away  sorrowing  because  he  gets  not  the  ex- 
pected answer  to  his  inquiry  for  the  last  term  in 
his  series  of  good  deeds,  and  so  cannot  sum  the  se- 
ries and  make  an  end.  Nor  has  changing  the  form 
of  merely  outward  doing  sufficed.  Clad  in  this 
seemly  cloak  of  outward  reformation  many  a 
worshipper  has  gone  to  God  as  Hercules  is  said  to 
have  prepared  himself  for  sacrifice  by  putting  on 
the  robe  tinged  with  the  poisoned  philter  of  Nes- 
sus.  At  first  the  hero  felt  no  effect  from  it,  but 
when  the  garment  grew  warm  the  venom  began  to 
consume  his  flesh  till  at  length  he  put  an  end  to 
his  agony  by  a  voluntary  death.  So  men  may  wear 
with  comfort  the  mantle  of  estimableness  and  in 
this  decent  guise  may  pass  respectably  among 
their  fellows;  yet  when  thus  attired  they  approach 
that  pure  altar  where  the  conscience  is  quickened 
by  the  apprehended  presence  of  a  heart-searching 


RELEASE   BY  FAITH  189 

and  holy  God,  then  the  venom  of  self-righteous- 
ness with  which  every  thread  of  that  fatal  robe  is 
steeped  begins  its  work.  Then  the  unhumbled 
worshipper  has  the  painfully  disappointing  convic- 
tion that  his  offering  is  not  accepted.  Then  dis- 
satisfied with  himself  he  becomes  dissatisfied  with 
God;  he  is  "  wroth  and  his  countenance  falls,"  and 
he  ends,  it  may  be,  with  bitter  though  perhaps  un- 
expressed hatred  of  a  free  salvation  which  can 
come  only  by  the  cross  of  Jesus. 

From  all  this  enslavement  of  fear,  of  form  and 
of  unhumbled  hate  that  cross  saves  us.  No  sooner 
do  we  surrender  ourselves  to  Christ  in  penitent  and 
full  trust  than  we  are  done  and  done  forever  with 
the  stress  and  strain  of  trying  to  avert  from  our- 
selves punitive  and  deserved  disaster.  From  all 
possible  overthrow  of  shame  and  sorrow  we  are 
saved  at  once  and  saved  forever.  Fear  is  hence- 
forth groundless  and  is  a  dishonor  to  Christ.  The 
sorrowful  answerer  to  law  now  becomes,  instead, 
the  joyful  receiver  of  gifts.  We  are  dealt  with  no 
longer  on  the  ground  of  law  but  on  the  footing  of 
grace.  In  His  treatment  of  us  Christ  is  governed 
no  more  by  the  strict  exactitudes  of  justice  but 
wholly   by   the   unhindered  promptings   of   love. 


I  go  FROM    TALK    TO    TEXT 

Where  before  we  saw  with  trembling  only  a  stern 
form  sitting  blindfold  and  bearing  aloft  in  one 
hand  the  unswerving  scales  and  in  the  other  the 
unsparing  sword,  we  see  now  a  face  of  wondrous- 
ly  blended  human  and  divine  beauty  and  eyes 
beaming  on  us  with  tenderest  love  and  hands  full 
of  blessings  stretched  out  toward  us.  And  our 
Christ,  when  He  comes,  brings  with  Him  no  nicely- 
poised  balances  with  which  to  weigh  our  alms  and 
our  prayers  and  our  dole  of  Christian  work,  to  see 
whether  we  have  earned  enough  wherewith  to  buy 
His  offered  good.  Himself  unconstrained  in  His 
affection,  He  ties  us  to  no  strict  calendar  of  tithes 
or  of  times,  to  no  hard  arithmetic  of  sacrifices,  of 
sufferings  or  of  self-denials.  What  need?  Since 
He  has  won  for  Himself  a  love  which  scorns  to 
give  less  than  all. 

"  Wherefore,  my  brethren,  ye  also  are  become 
dead  to  the  law  through  the  body  of  Christ,  that 
ye  should  be  married  to  another,  even  to  Hifu  who 
is  raised  from  the  dead,  that  we  should  bring  forth 
fruit  unto  God."     (Rom.  vii,  4.) 


Theological  Semmary-Speei 


1    1012  01148  8881 


DATE  DUE 

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INTED  IN  US 


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